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THE 


QUAETEELY    EEVIEW 


VOL.  193. 


PUBLISHED  IN 


JANUARY  (J-    APRIL,    1901. 


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LONDON:  :::-: 

JOHN  MURRAY,  ALBEMARLE  STREET. 

1901. 


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LONDON : 

Printed  by  William  Clowbs  and  Sons,  Limited 

Stamford  Street  and  Charing  Orou. 


CONTENTS 

OF 

No.  385. 


PAOK 

Art.    I. — British    Agriculture    in    the    Nineteenth 

Century-        -        - 1 

1.  Reports  of  the  first  Board  of  Agriculture.  London  : 
1794-1815. 

2.  The  Farmer's  Magazine.     Edinburgh :  1800,  1801. 
And  other  works. 

Art.  II. — The  Poems  op  Crabbe 21 

1.  The  Poetical  Works  of  the  Rev.  George  Crabbe,  with 
his  Letters  and  Journals,  and  his  Life.  Edited  by 
his  son.     Eight  vols.     London  :  John  Murray,  1834. 

2.  The  Poems  of  George  Crabbe.  A  Selection.  Arranged 
and  edited  by  Bernard  Holland.  London:  Edward 
Arnold,  1899. 

Art.  III. — The    First   Century    of   the    East    India 

Company 44 

1.  A  History  of  British  India.  By  Sir  William  Wilson 
Hunter.     Two  vols.     London  :  Longmans,  1899-1900. 

2.  The  Diary  of  William  Hedges  (1681-1687).  Edited  by 
Col.  Henry  Yule  and  R.  Barlow.  (Hakluyt  Society.) 
Three  vols.     London:  1887-1889. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  IV. — The  Victorian  Stage       -        -        -        -        -    75 

1.  The  Drama  of  Yesterday  and  To-day.  By  Clement 
Scott.     Two  vols.     London :  Macmillan,  1899. 

2.  Dramatic  Criticism.  By  J.  T.  Grein.  London :  John 
Long,  1899. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  v.— Virgil  and  Tennyson  :  A  Literary  Parajxrl    99 

1.  P.  Vergilii  Maronis  Opera  Omnia.  Recensuerunt  T.  L. 
Papillon  A.M.  et  A.  E.  Haigh  A.M.  Oxonii :  e  prelo 
Clarendoniano,  1895. 

2.  Ancient  Lives  of  Vergil,  with  an  Essay  on  the  Poems 
of  Vergil.  By  H.  Nettleship.  Oxford :  Clarendon 
Press,  1879. 

And  other  works. 


ii  C()NTEx\  rs 

PAGE 

Akt.  V'I.  -Mjchklkt  as  ax  IIistohiax      ...         -  kjo 

1.  Ma  Jeunesse.  Par  Jules  Michel ot.  Deuxieme  itlditiou. 
Pans :  C.  Levy,  1884. 

2.  Jules  Michelet:  CEuvres  Completes.  I^jdition  defini- 
tive, revue  et  eorrigee.  Paris :  Flammariou,  1893,  cVe. 
And  other  works. 

Art.  VII. — The  Amir  of  Afghanistan    -        -        -        -  151 

1.  The  Life  of  Abdur  Rahman,  Amir  of  Afjifhanistiui. 
Edited  by  Mir  Munshi  Sultan  Mahomed  Khan.  Two 
vols.     London  :  John  Murray.  1900. 

2.  Khura.san  and  Sistan.  By  Lieut. -Colonel  C.  E.  Yate. 
Edinburgh  and  London  :  Bhu'kw(K)d,  1900. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  VIII. — Army  Reform 171 

1.  The  *  Times'  History  of  the  War  in  South  Africa. 
Edit-ed  by  L.  S.  Ameiy.  Vol.  I.  London :  Sampson 
Low,  1900. 

2.  The  South  African  War.  By  Major  S.  L.  Norris. 
London  :  John  Murray,  1900. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  IX. — The  Later  Years  of  Napoleon    -        -        -  202 

1.  Napoleon  Intime.  Par  Arthur  Ijevy,  Paris  :  Plon, 
1893. 

2.  La  Captivity  de  Sainte-Heltoe,  d'api'es  les  rap]K)rts 
in^its  du  Marquis  de  Montchenu.  Par  G.  Kirmin- 
Didot.     Pans :  Firniiu-Didot,  1894. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  X. — The  Settlement  of  South  Africa  -        -        -  224 

1.  Boer  Politics.  By  Yves  Giiyot.  Translated  from  the 
French.     London  :  John  Muri-ay,  1900. 

2.  The  Settlement  after  the  War  in  South  Africa.     By 
M.  J.'Farrelly,  LL.D.     L<mdon:  Macmillan,  1900. 
And  other  Avorks. 

Art.  XI. — Professor  Huxley 258 

1.  Life  and  Letters  of  Thomas  Henry  Huxley.  By  his 
sou,  Leonard  Huxley.  Two  Vols.  London :  Macmil- 
lan, 1900. 

2.  Leaders  in  Science  :  Thomas  Henry  Huxley — A  Sketch 
of  his  Life  and  Work.    By  P.  Chalmei's  Mitc»hell,  M.A. 
New  York  and  London :  G,  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1900. 
And  other  works. 

Art.  XII.— The  Nicaraguan  Canal         .        .        -        -  279 


CONTENTS 

OF 

No.  386. 


PAUK 


Art.  I. — ^Thb  Gharactbr  of  Quben  Victoria-       -       -  801 

Art.  II. — British   Aoriculturb    in    the    Ninbtbknth 

Century 338 

1.  Journal  of  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  of  England. 
London:  1858-1900. 

2.  Transactions  of  the  Highland  and  Agricultural  Society 
of  Scotland.    Edinburgh:  1858-1900. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  III. — ^Ancient  and  Modern  Criticism      -       -       -  859 

1.  A  History  of  Esthetic.  By  Bernard  Bosanquet. 
London :  Swan  Sonnenschein,  1892. 

2.  L' Anarchie  Litt^raire.  Par  Charles  Recolin.  Paris : 
Perrin,  1898. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  rv.— Pasteur  and  his  Discoveries        -       -       -  884 

1.  La  vie  de  Pasteur.  Par  Ren6  Vallery-Radot.  Paris : 
Hachette,  1900. 

2.  Pasteur.  By  Percy  Frankland  and  Mrs  Percy  Frank- 
land.  (Century  Science  Series.)  London :  Casaell, 
1898. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  v.— Navy  Boilers 406 

1.  Water-Tube  Boilers.  By  J.  A.  Normand.  London: 
The  Bedford  Press,  1895. 

2.  Marine  Boilers :  their  Construction  and  Working.  By 
L.  E.  Bertin,  Chief  Constructor  of  the  French  Navy. 
Translated  and  edited  by  L.  G.  Robertson.  With 
Preface%y  Sir  W.  White.  London:  John  Murray, 
1898. 

And  other  works. 


ii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Art.  VI. — The  Housing  Question 482 

1.  The  Health  of  Nations.  A  review  of  the  works  of 
Edwin  Chadwick.  By  Benjamin  Ward  Richardson. 
Two  vols.     London :  Longmans,  1887. 

2.  Essays  on  Rural  Hygiene.  By  George  Vivian  Poore, 
M.D.,  F.R.C.P.  Second  edition.  London :  Longmans, 
1804. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  VII. — Humanism  and  CHRisTiANrrv  -        -        -        -  458 

1.  La  fin  du  Paganisme.  Par  Gaston  Boissier,  de 
I'Acad^mie  Fran^aise.    Paris :  1891. 

2.  Les  femmes  de  la  Renaissance.  Par  R.  De  Maulde  La 
Clavi^re.     Paris:  1898. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  VIII. — The  Game  op  Billiards        -        -        -        -  482 

1.  Billiards.  (The  Badminton  Library.)  By  Major  W. 
Broadfoot,  with  contributions  by  other  writers.  New^ 
edition.     London:  Longmans,  1897. 

2.  Le  Billard.     Par  M.  Vignaiix.     Paris :  Delarue,  n.d. 
And  other  works. 

Art.  IX. — ^The  Relief  op  Kumassi 499 

1.  Correspondence  relating  to  the  Ashanti  War,  1900. 
Presented  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament  by  command 
of  His  Majesty.     March  1901. 

2.  Jours  d'angoisse  k  Ck>umassie.  Journal  du  mission- 
naire  Fritz  Ramseyer.  Neuchatel :  Delachauz  et 
Niestl^,  1901. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  X. — ^The  Educational  Opportunity       -        -        -  522 

1.  Regina  v.  Cockerton.  Judgment  of  the  Queen's  Bench 
Division,  December  20th,  1900. 

2.  Rex  t\  Cockerton.  Judgment  of  the  Court  of  Appeal, 
April  fst,  1901. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  XI. — ^Thb  Sbttlbment  op  South  Africa        -        -  544 

1.  Native  Races  and  the  War.  By  Mrs  Josephine  E. 
Butler.    London :  Gay  and  Bird,  1900. 

2.  Vigilance  Papers,  1  to  10.  Cape  Town:  The  South 
African  Vigilance  Committee,  1900. 

And  other  works. 

Art.  XII. — Mandbll  Crbighton 584 


THE 


QUAETEBLY    REVIEW. 


Art.  I.— BRITISH  AGRICULTURE  IN  THE  NINETEENTH 
CENTURY. 

1.  Reports  of  the  first  Board  of  Agriculture.  London : 
1794-^1815. 

2.  The  Farme7^'s  Magazine.    Edinburgh  :  1800,  1801. 

3.  Transactions  of  the  Highland  and  Agricultural  Society 
of  Scotland,  Second  and  subsequent  series.  Edinburgh : 
1828^1000. 

4.  Journal  of  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  of  England. 
London:  1839-1890. 

6.  English  Agriculture  in  1850^51.  By  James  Caird.  Lon- 
don: Longmans,  1852. 

6.  History  of  the  Highland  and  Agricultural  Society  of 
Scotland.  By  Alexander  Bamsay.  Edinburgh  and 
London :  Blackwood,  1879. 

7.  Pioneers  and  Progress  of  English  Farming.  By  R.  E. 
Prothero.     London :  Longmans,  1888. 

8.  Wages  in  the  United  Kingdom  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century.  By  Arthur  L.  Bowley,  M.A.,  P.S.S.  Cambridge : 
University  Press,  1900. 

9.  Earnings  of  Agricvltural  Labou/rers.  Report  to  the 
Iiabour  Department  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  By  Wilson 
Fox,  1900.    (C.  346.) 

Article  I. 

The  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  nineteenth  century 
in  relation  to  agriculture  is  that  it  was  the  first  century 
in  which  science,  to  any  considerable  extent,  was  applied 
to  practice.  It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  science  was 
not  applied  at  all  in  an  earlier  period,  because,  to  a  small 
extent^  the  sciences  of  mechanics,  physiology,  and  botany 
had  long  contributed  information  respegtiyely  to  inventors 
Vol.  193.— A^o.  m.  B 


BRITISH    AGRICULTURE  8 

drill  husbandry  from  Loinbardy,and  brought  out  hisfamous 
horse-hoe;  and  Lord  Townshend  had  popularised  in  Norfolk 
the  four-course  rotation,  drilling,  and  horse-hoeing,  setting 
an  example  which  was  slowly  followed  in  other  counties. 
There  were  many  different  drills  in  use,  including  the  North- 
umberland drill,  which  sowed  soot,lime,or  asheswith  turnip 
seed;  and  the  Suffolk  com  drill,  then  the  best  implement 
for  cereals,  as,  with  improvements,  it  remained  during  the 
gpreater  portion  of  the  succeeding  century.  Arthur  Young 
gives  a  drawing  of  a  drill  used  in  Essex,  which  had  coulters 
of  the  pattern  reintroduced  to  this  country  as  a  novelty 
from  the  United  States  a  few  years  ago,  and  now  generally 
preferred  to  the  cutting  coulters  which  had  superseded 
them  for  generations.  Drilling,  of  course,  was  much  less 
common  than  it  is  at  present ;  and  its  advantage  was  a 
subject  of  warm  controversy,  particularly  in  relation 
to  the  sowing  of  com.  But  even  now  there  are  parts  of 
England  in  which  the  broadcasting  of  com  is  generally 
practised  in  preference  to  drilling.  The  dibbling  of  com 
was  a  method  of  sowing  much  in  favour  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  for  at  least  fifty  years  later.  A 
report  on  Suffolk,  written  in  1787,  says  that  the  practice 
was  only  recently  introduced.  There  are  many  farmers 
now  living  who  had  a  good  deal  of  com  and  pulse  dibbled 
in  their  early  days  of  farming ;  and  when  com  was  dear 
and  labour  cheap  there  was  no  more  economical  method 
of  sowing.  But  when  com  became  cheap  and  the  labour 
of  women  and  children  difficult  to  obtain,  the  practice 
became  nearly  extinct. 

Many  of  the  ploughs  in  use  a  hundred  years  ago  were 
clumsy  and  of  heavy  draught ;  but  most  of  them  have  held 
their  own  locally,  with  but  slight  modifications.  In  this 
connexion  it  is  curious  to  notice  an  early  anticipation  of  a 
modem  invention.  Before  1770,  Mr  Ducket,  of  Petersham, 
Surrey,  had  brought  out  a  three-furrow  plough,  with  which 
he  turned  up  from  three  to  four  acres  in  a  day,  using  four 
or  five  horses ;  while  two-furrow  ploughs  were  found  by 
Young  in  several  counties.  Many  living  farmers  can  re- 
member suich  ploughs  being  brought  out  afresh  as  complete 
novelties,  though,  like  the  inventions  of  Mr  Ducket  and 
others,  they  rapidly  fell  into  disuse.  An  equally  striking 
example  of  the  kind  of  anticipation  under  notice  is  afforded 
by  Young  s  iUustr^ited  description  of  another  of  Mr  Ducket's 

B  2 


BRITISH    AGRICULTURE  5 

corn-feeding  for  any  other  animals  than  horses  and  pigs 
was  uncommon.  The  use  of  malt  dust  as  a  fertiliser, 
put  on  in  small  quantities  with  a  turnip  and  manure  drill, 
indicated  a  lack  of  chemical  knowledge.  One  operation, 
temporarily  fertilising,  but  exhausting  in  the  long  run, 
was  commonly  practised  at  the  time  under  notice,  but  has 
happily  become  almost  extinct.  This  was  the  paring  and 
burning  of  pasture  land,  which  was  denounced  by  the  most 
enlightened  agriculturists  of  the  period. 

In  consequence  mainly  of  the  deficiency  and  inferiority 
of  the  manures  used,  the  com  crops  of  the  eighteenth 
century  were  certainly  not  usually  equal  to  those  grown 
in  more  recent  times.  The  highest  average  yield  of 
wheat  given  in  any  of  the  *  County  Surveys'  was  Van- 
couver's estimate  for  Essex  in  1794,  namely,  24j^  bushels 
per  €icre,  which  Young  endorsed  a  few  years  later. 
Essex  at  that  time  was,  in  Young's  opinion,  better 
farmed,  on  the  whole,  than  any  other  county  in  England ; 
and  occasional  yields  up  to  58  bushels  per  acre  are 
mentioned  as  having  been  obtained.  The  average  g^ven 
above,  however,  compares  ill  with  20*7  bushels  per  acre 
as  the  ten  years'  average  for  Essex  according  to  the 
agricultural  returns  for  1809.  For  SufiPolk,  also  one  of 
the  best  cultivated  counties.  Young,  in  1797,  estimated 
the  average  yields  of  corn  at  22  bushels  for  wheat,  28 
bushels  for  barley,  and  32  to  34  bushels  for  oats ;  whereas 
the  ten  years'  averages  given  for  the  same  county  by  the 
present  Board  of  Agriculture  are  a  minute  fraction  under 
29  bushels  for  wheat,  32  for  barley,  and  40f  for  oats.  If, 
however,  contemporary  estimates  are  to  be  believed,  there 
is  one  crop  which  has  deteriorated  in  natural  productive- 
ness. There  is  no  doubt  that  the  potato  has  been  weakened 
in  constitution  by  prolonged  reproduction  from  tubers; 
and  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  common  disease  of 
the  present  day  was  not  known  in  this  country  till  long 
after  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Therefore 
it  is  quite  credible  that  the  crops  grown  with  very  little 
manure  a  hundred  years  ago  were  much  heavier  than 
they  are  under  like  circumstances  now.  Young  mentions 
crops  up  to  700  bushels  per  acre,  which,  at  70  lb.  per 
bushel — ^the  weight  which  he  gives  for  the  old  heaped 
measure — ^were  equivalent  to  nearly  22  tons.  This  would 
be  a  wonderful  crop  in  even  the  best  potato  districts  of 


BRITISH   AGRICULTURE  7 

middle  of  the  eighteenth  oentuiy*  and  still  prevailed  ex- 
tensively at  the  end  of  that  period.  The  reports  to  the 
Board  of  Agriculture  on  the  counties  of  Scotland  in  1794 
and  1795  show  that  the  in-field  and  out-field  regulations 
I>ertaining  to  the  open-field  system  were  still  common  in 
some  counties,  and  that  great  tracts  of  country  were  un- 
f enced.  Until  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century 
agriculture  in  Scotland  was  far  behind  that  of  all  but  the 
most  backward  districts  of  England.  Berwickshire,  *  the 
cradle  of  Scottish  husbandry,'  led  the  march  of  improve- 
ment before  1750;  but  even  in  that  county  the  general 
run  of  farmers  were  at  first  slow  to  follow  the  example 
of  Lord  Karnes  and  other  advanced  agriculturists,  though 
they  made  fairly  rapid  progress  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
century. 

The  live  stock  of  Great  Britain,  and  particularly  the 
cattle  and  sheep,  had  been  greatly  improved  before  the 
year  1800.  Bakewell  had  improved  the  Longhom,  though 
not  to  much  purpose,  as  it  wa.s  doomed  to  be  set  aside 
generally  in  favour  of  the  Shorthorn,  known  at  the  time 
as  the  Holdemess,  which  the  brothers  Colling,  then  in  the 
midst  of  their  career,  had  taken  in  hand  with  good  effect. 
The  Tomkins  family  and  others  had  done  good  work 
among  the  Herefords,  and  Francis  Quartley  with  the 
Devons;  while  the  Sussex  cattle  for  beef,  and  the  Norfolk 
and  Suffolk  polled  cattle  for  the  dairy,  were  accounted  by 
Young  as  among  the  best  varieties  in  the  country.  The 
Galloway  and  the  Angus,  however,  though  famous  in 
Scotland,  had  not  yet  been  strikingly  improved  by  any  par- 
ticular breeder :  Hugh  Watson,  the  earliest  of  the  great 
improvers  of  the  latter  breed — ^now  developed  into  the 
Aberdeen-Angus — only  began  to  farm  land  in  1808.  Bake- 
well  had  earned  immortal  fame  by  his  great  transforma- 
tion of  the  Leicester  breed  of  sheep,  while  John  EUman, 
of  Glynde,  had  done  much  for  the  Southdowns,  and  David 
Dun,  in  consequence  of  his  efforts  to  improve  the  black- 
faced  sheep,  had  been  described  as  'the  Bakewell  of 
Scotland.'  Suffolk  horses  were  famous  as  the  best  for  the 
plough  in  Young's  day,  but  no  particular  breeder's  name 
stands  forth  pre-eminently  as  an  improver  of  the  animais. 
The  Shire,  as  a  distinct  breed,  was  not  in  existence,  though 
its  progenitors,  the  heavy  hairy-legged  cart-horses  of  the 
Midlands  and  Lincolnshire,  were  famous,  and  the  first  of 


BRITISH   AGRICULTURE  0 

classes  of  farming  improvements  in  1760.  In  1708  the 
Smithfleld  Club  was  established.  The  first  Board  of 
Agriculture  was  formed  in  1703,  with  Sir  John  Sinclair  as 
president  and  Arthur  Young  aa  secretary. 

The  Board  of  Agriculture  maintained  its  existence  until 
1822,  but  its  usefulness  was  crippled  throughout  its  exis- 
tence by  an  insufficiency  of  funds,  while  its  management, 
especially  in  its  early  years,  was  injudicious.  Perhaps  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  it  did  more  for  posterity  than 
for  the  agriculturists  of  its  own  day;  for  its  county  surveys, 
good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  included  some  productions 
which  are  valuable  historical  records,  with  others  that  are 
simply  misleading.  These  reports,  so  far  as  they  were 
instructive  to  farmers,  were  prevented  from  being  as  useful 
as  they  might  have  been  by  the  high  prices  at  which  they 
were  published.  They  were  noticed  by  the  press,  however, 
and  excited  a  good  deal  of  public  controversy,  which  was 
beneficial.  More  good  was  done,  perhaps,  by  the  premiums 
offered  by  the  Board  for  experiments,  inventions,  and 
essays,  and  more  still  by  the  engagement  of  Professor 
(afterwards  Sir  Humphry)  Davy,  to  deliver  lectures  on 
agricultural  chemistry.  As  professor  of  chemical  agricul- 
ture to  the  Board,  Davy  delivered  annual  lectures  for 
eleven  years,  from  1803  to  1813  inclusive,  after  which 
they  were  published  in  a  volume. 

The  past  century  saw  a  great  extension  of  the  landlord 
and  tenant  syBtem.  The  extinction  of  common  rights  in  open 
fields  and  wastes  began  the  process,  and  the  steady  absorp- 
tion of  the  land  of  the  yeomanry  by  the  large  proprietors 
went  far  towards  completing  it.  The  latter  process  had 
begun  in  1706,  especially  near  the  manufacturing  districts. 
Holt,  in  his  report  on  Lancashire  in  that  year,  remarked 
that  the  yeomanry,  formerly  numerous  and  respectable, 
had  greatly  diminished  in  number  of  late,  though  they 
were  not  extinct.  He  added  that  the  great  wealth  which 
neighbouring  manufacturers  had  rapidly  acquired  had 
tempted  the  yeomen  to  invest  their  capital  in  trade  and 
to  place  their  children  Mn  the  maQufacturing  line.'  But 
in  most  other  parts  of  England  these  infiuences  did  not 
operate,  and  the  yeomanry  continued  to  be  a  numerous 
class  until  the  nineteenth  century  had  well  advanced.  In 
Kent,  for  example,  John  Boys  found  them  numerous  in 
1706,  many  of  them  being  owners  of  large  farms. 


BRITISH    AGRICULTURE  11 

a  depreciated  currency,  rose  to  extreme  rates.  Barley 
averaged  C8s.  6d.  in  the  first  year  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, and  this  was  its  maximum.  It  had  been  only  26«.  Sd. 
in  1700.  Oats,  like  wheat,  were  highest  in  1812,  when 
they  averaged  449.  6d.  per  quarter,  the  average  for  barley 
being  669. 9d.  The  fluctuations  were  enormous,  the  ranges 
of  annual  average  in  the  first  twelve  years  of  the  century 
being  from  588.  lOd.  to  1268.  6d.  per  quarter  for  wheat,  from 
25ii.  id.  to  688.  6d.  for  barley,  and  from  208.  4d!.  to  448.  6d. 
for  oats.  But  the  mean  rates  during  the  period  were  high 
enough  to  bring  wealth  to  farmers,  and  to  send  rents  up 
enormously.  For  example,  the  rental  of  the  Northumber- 
land ag^cultural  estates  of  Greenwich  Hospital  rose  from 
69502.  in  1703-4  to  15,560Z.  in  1814-15,  an  advance  of  124  per 
cent.  The  rental  of  agricultural  land  in  Scotland  rose  from 
two  millions  sterling,  in  round  numbers,  in  1795,  to  five 
and  a  quarter  millions  in  1815.  Although  wages  rose,  the 
advance  was  not  nearly  sufficient  to  enable  labourers  and 
their  families  to  subsist  upon  them,  with  the  price  of  food 
so  high  as  it  was  during  this  period ;  and  thousands  were 
kept  from  starvation  only  by  a  lavish  outlay  in  poor  relief, 
used  by  farmers,  in  effect,  as  part  payment  of  wages.  It 
is  not  surprising  to  learn,  then,  that  the  total  burden  of 
rates  in  England  and  Wales  rose  from  5,848,0002.  in  1803 
to  8,164,0002.  in  1815. 

The  new  duties  on  imports  of  wheat,  imposed  in  1804, 
had  little  to  do  with  the  high  prices  of  com.  From  1791 
to  1803  the  duty  was  6c2.  per  quarter  when  wheat  was  548. 
or  more  in  price,  28. 6c2.  when  it  was  between  548.  and  508., 
and  248.  3(2.  when  it  was  below  508.  The  tariff  of  1804 
made  the  rate  6c2.  per  quarter  on  wheat  at  668.  or  more, 
28.  6c2.  when  it  was  between  668.  and  638.,  and  248.  3d.  when 
it  was  below  638.  But  from  1805  to  1814  inclusive  the  price 
was  not  once  as  low  as  668.,  the  range  of  annual  averages 
having  been  from  748.  to  1268.  6c2.  It  is  strange  indeed, 
that  in  1813,  the  year  after  wheat  had  reached  its  highest 
average  of  1268.  6c2.,  it  was  deemed  desirable  to  increase 
the  duties  on  imports,  charging  l8.  per  quarter  at  808.,  and 
higher  rates  on  a  sliding  scale  as  prices  decreased  down  to 
648.,  at  which  price  the  duty  was  248.  In  1813  wheat 
averaged  1098.  9c2.  per  quarter ;  barley,  588.  6c2. ;  and  oats, 
388. 6c2.  But  the  next  year  brought  a  fall  to  748. 4c2.,  378. 4c2., 
and  258. 8d.  for  the  three  kinds  of  grain  respectively ;  and 


BRITISH    AGRICULTURE  13 

gallon  for  bread  and  an  allowance  of  4^.  a  week  to  a  man 
and  his  wife,  with  l^.  6c2.  for  each  child  up  to  eight 
children,  making  16«.  a  week,  the  scale  proceeds  to  show 
results  for  each  penny  advance  in  bread  up  to  28.  6d.  per 
gallon,  at  which  price  a  man  and  wife  received  Sa.  6d.  in 
poor  relief  and  38.  for  each  child,  making  11.  128.  6d.  a 
week  for  a  couple  with  eight  children.  A  foot-note  directs 
overseers  *  to  attend  to  what  an  industrious  family  might 
earn,  and  not  to  what  the  idle  and  negligent  do  earn/ 
This  scale  was  current  in  1808,  when  wheat  averaged 
8l8.  id.  per  qiulrter ;  and,  as  has  been  shown,  it  rose 
much  higher  before  the  end  of  the  war. 

The  great  inducement  to  grow  an  extended  acreage  of 
com,  and  to  crop  the  land  severely,  during  the  period  of 
high  prices,  made  matters  all  the  worse  when  prices  fell. 
By  1821  wheat  had  dropped  to  the  average  of  568.  Id.  per 
quarter,  while  that  of  barley  was  only  26^.  and  that  of 
oats  199.  6d. ;  in  1822  the  averages  for  the  three  kinds  of 
com  were  respectively  44«.  7(2.,  2l8.  lOd!.,  and  188.  Ic2., 
a  good  deal  of  wheat  being  sold  as  low  as  408.  This  was 
the  beginning  of  a  far  worse  period  of  distress  than  that 
which  had  prevailed  in  1815  and  a  few  succeeding  years, 
great  numbers  of  farmers  being  ruined.  Select  Commit- 
tees sat  in  1820, 1821, 1822, 1833,  and  1836  to  enquire  into 
the  distressed  condition  of  the  agricultural  classes.  The 
period  was  the  most  disastrous  that  those  classes  had 
ever  endured.  Rents  and  tithes  were  unpaid  to  a  great 
extent,  and  many  small  landowners  lost  their  estates  by 
the  foreclosure  of  mortgages,  while  shopkeepers  and 
banks  failed  in  considerable  number.  Riots  and  incen- 
diarism once  more  became  common.  The  price  of  wheat 
recovered  after  1822.  It  remained  over  528.  per  quarter, 
and  frequently  rose  to  between  60^.  and  70j9.,  until  1834, 
when  the  average  was  only  468.  2c2.,  and  in  1835  it  dropped 
to  398.  id.  Meat  had  been  cheap  while  the  general  trade 
of  the  country  was  depressed.  Rates  had  increased 
enormously,  touching  208.  in  the  pound  of  assessment  in 
some  parishes.  Alterations  in  the  com  duties  were  of  no 
avail  to  stave  off  the  distress ;  and,  although  there  were 
years  of  comparative  recovery,  when  harvests  were  abun- 
dant or  prices  improved,  no  steady  relief  set  in  until  the 
new  Poor  Law  of  1834  had  begun  to  work,  and  the  com- 
mutation of  tithes  in  1836  had  relieved  farmers  to  some 


BRITISH    AGRICULTURE  15 

(afterwards  Earl  of  Leicester)  was  bringing  his  famous 
Holkham  herd  of  the  same  breed,  started  in  1791,  to  a 
high  degree  of  perfection,  and  persevering  in  his  not  very 
successful  attempt  to  induce  the  Norfolk  farmers  to  adopt 
it.  The  improvement  of  Scottish  breeds  of  cattle  was 
made  manifest  at  the  shows  of  the  Highland  Society,  and 
the  several  breeds  of  sheep  in  England  and  Scotland  alike 
continued  to  receive  attention,  whUe  pigs  began  to  be 
regarded  more  generally  as  worthy  of  careful  breeding. 
The  agricultural  distress,  indeed,  affected  the  corn-growing 
far  more  seriously  than  the  live-stock  industry. 

One  of  the  most  unfortunate  results  of  the  prolonged 
period  of  depression  was  the  extinction  of  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  yeomanry.  These  small  landowners,  in  times 
of  prosperity,  had  followed  the  lead  of  the  men  of  many 
acres  in  living  up  to  their  means,  and  burthening  their 
property  with  mortgages  and  annuities.  When  prices 
fell,  they  lacked  the  relief  which  tenant-farmers  obtained 
in  reductions  of  rent.  The  interest  which  they  had  to  pay 
in  the  place  of  rent  was  demanded  in  full,  and  they  were 
unable  to  meet  this  and  other  periodical  payments.  Con- 
sequently foreclosures  became  common  among  the  yeo- 
manry, and  comparatively  few  of  them  survived  the 
prolonged  trial  to  which  they  were  subjected. 

Evidence  brought  before  the  Select  Committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons  in  1836  was  generally  to  the  effect 
that  farmers  were  in  a  state  of  great  distress,  paying  rent 
and  labour  out  of  capital ;  and  some  witnesses  described 
them  as  in  a  worse  position  than  that  which  they,  had 
occupied  in  1833,  1820,  or  1818 ;  while  others  declared,  in 
reference  to  certain  districts,  that  all  the  farmers  who 
had  no  means  apart  from  those  of  farming  were  practi- 
cally insolvent.  The  condition  of  the  labourers  W€ts  said 
to  be  desperate.  Some  allowance  may  be  made  for  the 
tendency  of  witnesses  desiring  to  prove  their  case  in 
favour  of  legislative  relief  or  higher  duties  on  imports; 
but  at  the  time  farmers  were  suffering  particularly  from 
a  great  drop  in  the  price  of  wheat,  which  averaged  only 
39«.  4d.  per  quarter  in  1835,  the  lowest  price  of  the  century, 
so  far.  In  the  f oUowing  year  there  was  an  advance  to 
4&r.  6c2.,  and  progressive  rises  in  the  three  f oUowing  years 
brought  the  price  up  to  lOs.  8d,  in  1830,  after  which  the 
average  continued  above  50«.  for  nine  yeitrs,  sometimes 


BRITISH    AGRICULTURE  17 

advanced  to  237,393  tons.  Nitrate  of  soda  was  used  by  a 
few  farmers  in  1850 ;  but  in  1853  only  10,000  tons  of  this 
manure  and  saltpetre,  classed  together  in  the  trade  returns 
of  that  year,  were  imported,  whereas,  by  1865,  the  quantity 
of  the  former  alone  had  risen  to  50,000  tons. 

Agricultural  education  upon  a  popular  scale  was  first 
introduced  in  Ireland  in  1838,  when  the  Glasnevin  Institu- 
tion was  established  to  train  national-school  teachers  in  the 
principles  of  agriculture.  This  was  the  first  institution  of 
the  kind  founded  in  the  United  Kingdom,  though  the 
chair  of  Bural  Economy  had  been  established  at  Edinburgh 
University  as  early  as  1790.  Apparently  the  results  of  the 
Glasnevin  experiment  did  not  assume  a  definite  form  until 
shortly  after  the  Irish  Famine,  in  1846-7,  when  agricultural 
classes  were  formed  in  elementary  schools,  only  to  fall 
speedily  into  disuse  for  lack  of  pupils.  Glasnevin  was  re- 
organised in  1852,  and  new  buildings  were  erected,  with 
a  model  farm  attached,  named  after  Prince  Albert,  who 
took  a  great  interest  in  the  undertaking,  which  in  course 
of  time  became  successful.  In  1845  the  Boyal  Agricultural 
College  at  Cirencester  was  founded.  The  Chemical 
Department  of  the  Highland  and  Agricultural  Society  of 
Scotland  was  establishedinl849,  to  investigate  thechemistry 
of  agriculture.  The  dissemination  of  agricultural  informa- 
tion was  rapidly  extended  by  the  numerous  agricultural 
societies  and  farmers'  clubs  after  1837.  While  the  societies, 
by  their  shows,  developed  a  general  appreciation  of 
improved  breeds  of  stock,  and  familiarised  farmers  at  large 
with  the  best  implements  and  other  farm  appliances,  the 
clubs,  by  their  papersand  discussions,  spread  the  knowledge 
of  the  few  among  the  many. 

The  improvers  of  live  stock,  after  the  prolonged  period 
of  depression  was  ended,  became  too  numerous  to  be 
mentioned.  All  classes  of  farm  animals,  in  England  and 
Scotlalid  alike,  received  their  share  of  attention.  The 
early  improvers  of  some  breeds  named  already  were  still 
living  long  after  1837 ;  and  the  Aberdeen- Angus  cattle  and 
Clydesdale  horses  had  not  long  to  wait.  Hugh  Watson 
and  William  McCombie  were  exhibiting  the  Angus  beasts, 
which  they  helped  to  bring  to  the  first  rank  among  cattle 
for  beef  in  1842 ;  and  Clydesdales  were  noticed  as  specially 
meritorious  in  the  official  report  of  the  Glasgow  Show  of 
the  Highland  Society  in  1850. 

Vol.  198.~iVb.  385.  r 


BRITISH   AGRICULTURE  19 

dairy  produce,  as  well  as  of  those  of  com,  while  wool  had 
been  down  in  value  since  1847.  The  most  interesting 
feature  of  Caird's  *  English  Agriculture  in  1850-51 '  id  the 
comparison  which  he  draws  between  the  existing  circum- 
stances of  English  agriculture  and  those  of  the  days  of 
Arthur  Young,  in  whose  footsteps  to  a  great  extent  he 
travelled.  He  found  the  weekly  wages  of  ordinary  farm 
labourers  averaging  as  little  as  la.  in  a  few  of  the  southern, 
eastern,  and  western  counties,  but  much  higher  in  the 
north,  rising  to  13^.  6d.  in  Lancashire.  There  are  men 
still  living  whose  ordinary  weekly  wages  after  they  were 
married  were  only  7«.  a  week,  and  many  who  can  remem- 
ber the  time  of  their  boyhood,  when  wheaten  bread  was 
a  rare  luxury,  and  they  subsisted  chiefly  upon  black 
bread  and  rice.  For  the  whole  country  Caird  puts  the 
average  wage  at  ds.  6c2.,  which  he  had  reckoned  it  to  be 
in  1846,  just  before  the  Com  Laws  were  repealed.  The 
extremes  were  68.  in  South  Wilts  and  158.  in  one  part  of 
Lancashire.  Dividing  the  country  broadly  into  north  and 
south,  Caird  puts  the  average  wages  at  ll8.  6c2.  in  the 
former  division,  and  88.  5(2.  in  the  latter ;  whereas  Young, 
in  1770,  had  estimated  those  of  the  former  at  68.  9(2.  and 
those  of  the  latter  at  78.  6(2.  So  far  as  the  comparison 
can  be  relied  on,  it  shows  advances  of  71  per  cent,  in  the 
north,  and  of  only  a  fraction  over  12  per  cent,  in  the  south. 
It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  wages  given  by  Caird 
were  those  of  day  labourers,  and  that  they  did  not  include 
extra  payments  in  money  or  in  kmd  at  harvest  and  other 
times.  It  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  there  were  more 
extras  in  1850  than  in  1770 — ^in  money  at  any  rate.  But 
still  labourers  were  miserably  paid  in  the  southern  two- 
thirds  of  England,  though  they  were  not  in  such  dire 
poverty  as  they  had  been  imder  Protection  in  1840,  when 
wages  were  no  higher  and  flour  was  28.  6(2.  per  stone.  In 
1850,  flqur  was  at  l8.  8(2.,  while  sugar  and  tea  had  fallen 
in  price  by  one  half. 

Although,  of  course,  Caird  f o.und  that  great  improve- 
ments in  agriculture  had  taken  place  since  Young's  time, 
he  also  noticed  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  land  was 
still  undrained,  and  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  poor 
and  slovenly  farming.  The  rent  of  land,  he  reckons,  had 
risen  100  per  cent,  since  1770,  and  the  wages  of  farm 
labourers  34  per  cent,  on  the  average,  whereas  tb«  vinlrT 

c  2 


(    21    ) 


Art.  n.— THE  POEMS  OP  CRABBE. 

1,  The  Poetical  Works  of  the  Rev.  George  Crabbey  tmth  hia 
Letters  and  JoumaJs^  and  his  Life.  Edited  by  his  son. 
Eight  vols.     London :  John  Murray,  1834. 

2.  The  Poems  of  George  Crabbe.  A  Selection.  Arranged  and 
edited  by  Bernard  Holland.  London :  Edward  Arnold, 
1890. 

The  neglect  and  forgetfulness  into  which  the  poems  of 
Crabbe  have  been  allowed  to  fall  is  not  creditable  to  the 
present  generation  of  English  readers  and  critics.  What 
does  it  mean  ?  It  will  hardly  do  to  assume  that  Crabbe 
has  damned  himself  by  inherent  weakness  and  unreadable- 
ness.  Critics  who  adopt  that  position  will  have  to  explain 
how  it  came  to  pass  that  he  was  a  favourite  author  with 
a  man  of  such  vigorous  intellect  and  independent  judg- 
ment as  the  late  Edward  Fitzgerald;  how  it  was  that 
Burke,  on  the  mere  perusal  of  the  manuscript  of  one  of 
Crabbe*s  earliest  poems,  immediately  recognised  its  author 
as  a  man  worth^helping,  and  was  confirmed  in  his  judgment 
by  Johnson ;  how  it  was  that  in  later  years,  and  after  the 
full  development  of  his  Crabbism,  Byron  should  have  held 
him  worth  such  a  compliment  as  the  line— 

*  Though  Natiu^e's  sternest  jjainter,  yet  the  best* ; 

best,  that  is,  among  the  'noble  poet's'  contemporaries. 
Though  some  of  his  literary  judgments  can  hardly  be 
accepted  now,  Byron  at  all  events  was  the  last  person  to 
be  taken  in  by  poetry  which  was  either  merely  senti- 
mental or  merely  formal  and  prosaic. 

A  more  probable  cause  of  the  barrier  between  him 
and  the  sympathies  of  the  succeeding  generations  may 
be  found  in  his  general  literary  form  and  style.  He  was, 
in  this  respect,  as  one  bom  out  of  due  time — ^not  too  soon, 
but  too  late.  Living  and  writing  well  into  *  The  Time  of 
New  Talk '  of  the  post-Revolution  period,  producing  his 
later  works  as  the  contemi)orary  of  Byron  and  Shelley 
— *  Tales  of  the  HaU,'  his  most  important  production,  was 
not  published  till  1819) — ^he  nevertheless  retained  to  the 
last  the  literary  impress  of  the  eighteenth  century.  He 
wrote  all  his  tales,  in  the  rhymed  couplet  of  the  Pope 
school,  the  repuir^pt  see-saw  pf  which  b^ame  distasteful 


THE    POEMS    OF    CRABBE  28 

and  character,  his  power  of  pathos  and  of  satire.  In  some 
cases,  indeed,  Crabbe's  dry  humour  seems  to  have  been 
mistaken  for  stupidity.  A  critic  in  the  *  AthensBum '  once 
quoted,  and  quoted  inaccurately,  the  couplet — 

'  And  I  was  asked  and  authorised  to  go 
To  seek  the  firm  of  Clutterbuck  and  CSo.' — 

from  Crabbers  most  powerful  poem,  as  an  instance  of  his 
hopeless  dulness  of  style;  and  even  that  pronounced 
Crabbite,  Fitzgerald,  made  the  same  mistake,  and  pro- 
posed, as  Mr  Holland  tells  us,  to  amend  it  thus — 

"  And  I  was  asked  to  set  it  right  with — Oh, 
Romantic  title  I — Glutterbuck  and  Co.' 

Could  neither  of  them  see  that  Crabbe  was  perfectly  con- 
scious of  the  bathos  of  the  vulgar  name,  and  inserted  it 
purposely  for  an  effect  of  contrast  ? 

Crabbe's  literary  defects  (to  dismiss  them  first) 
are  no  doubt  obvious  enough.  Choosing  the  narrative 
form  for  his  studies  of  human  character  and  manners, 
he  is  apt  to  be  prolix  and  fiat,  and  to  wander  into  un- 
necessary digressions,  in  those  introductory  or  connecting 
passages  which  form  the  necessary  scaffoldmg  of  a  narra- 
tive poem ;  passages  which  at  the  best  it  is  difficult  to 
render  effective  in  a  literary  sense,  and  in  which  he  some- 
times drops  into  a  prim  f  orm^.lity  of  diction  which  seems 
out  of  place  in  any  versified  writing,  even  in  the  structural 
portion  of  a  narrative  poem.  It  is  in  such  passages  that 
we  feel  his  inferiority  to  Pope,  whose  every  couplet  has  its 
point,  whUe  Crabbe  is  at  times  content,  in  transitional 
passages,  if  he  is  merely  metrical  and  granmiaticaL  On 
the  other  hand,  he  occasionally  enlivens  his  narrative  by 
a  superficial  play  upon  words,  which  recurs  often  enough 
to  be  called  a  mannerism,  for  instance,  in  the  description 
of  a  village  club : — 

*  We  term  it  Free-and-Eaay,  and  yet  we 
Find  it  no  easy  matter  to  be  free.'  * 

*  One  may  recall  Pope's — 

'  And  so  obliging  that  be  ne'er  obliged ' ; 

bat  in  this  case  the  vicionsness  and  sting  of  the  line  may  be  held  to  raise  it 
above  mere  word-play. 


THE   POEMS   OF   CRABBE  27 

i£  entirely  from  the  middle-class  point  of  view.  The  reason 
for  the  limitation  of  view  was  in  its  nature  the  same  in 
hoth  cases ;  both  writers  were  realists,  and  confined  them- 
selves to  representing  life  as  it  had  come  under  their  own 
observation;  and,  after  all,  the  middle-class  standpoint 
may  be  said  to  afford  a  wider  view  than  the  standpoint 
of  county  society.  Crabbe  cannot  be  compared  with  Jane 
Austen  as  an  artist;  but  he  knew  more  of  life  than  she 
knew ;  he  had  looked  deeper  into  human  nature ;  he  was 
acquainted  with  g^ef ,  and  possessed  the  power  of  keen 
I>athos — a  knowledge  and  a  power  which,  so  far  as  her 
writings  show,  were  beyond  Jane  Austen's  horizon. 

Crabbe*s  early  history,  besides  serving  to  explain  the 
influences  which  gave  his  genius  its  peculiar  bent,  is  of 
interest  as  giving  us  gUmpses  of  a  character  of  no  ordinary 
force  and  individuaUty,  apart  from  his  Kterary  gift.  No- 
thing  could  have  been  more  unpromising  than  his  early 
prospects.  'His  father  employed  him  in  the  warehouse 
on  the  quay  at  Slaughden,  in  labours  which  he  abhorred 
(though  he  in  time  became  tolerably  expert  in  them),  such 
as  piling  up  butter  and  cheese.*  The  profession  of  surgeon 
had  been  decided  on  for  him,  while  he  was  yet  at  school; 
but  after  the  term  of  his  apprenticeship  to  a  country 
surgeon  was  over,  his  father  could  neither  afford  to  send 
him  to  London  to  complete  his  education,  nor  to  maintain 
him  at  home  in  idleness,  and  he  had  for  a  time  to  return 
to  his  labours  on  the  quay.  A  few  months  subsequently 
spent  in  London  were  partially  wasted  through  want  of 
funds  to  make  the  most  of  his  opportunities ;  and  when 
he  eventually  took  up  the  practice  of  a  country  'apothecaiy,' 
as  the  phrase  then  went,  his  mind  was  constantly  tortured 
by  the  dread  of  a  responsibility  for  which  he  did  not  feel 
prepared ;  nor  were  his  prospects  of  an  adequate  pra>ctice 
in  any  case  very  promising.  At  length  he  resolved  '  to  go 
to  London  and  venture  alL' 

With  five  pounds  in  his  pocket  he  set  out,  to  go  through 
the  *  trial  of  faith '  (in  Bunyan's  phrase)  which  others  have 
gone  through  before  and  since — ^the  dreary  round  of  offer- 
ing manuscripts  to  one  publisher  after  another,  with  residts 
varying  only  between  the  refusal  courteous  and  the  refusal 
curt,  while  the  day  when  the  purse  will  be  drawn  blank 
looms  nearer  and  nearer.  Some  little  time  before,  Crabbe 
had  been  happily,  though  at  the  time  rather  hopelessly, 


THE    tOfiMS    OF    CRABBE  29 

an  unhappy  one ;  •  .  .  Can  you,  sir,  in  any  degree,  aid  me 
with  propriety  ? '  It  must  have  cost  him  a  painful  effort 
to  write  thus,  for  he  was  naturally  of  an  exceedingly 
proud  and  independent  spirit.  But  he  had  appealed  to 
one  of  the  only  two  prominent  men  of  the  day  in  London 
to  whom  an  appeal  from  a  struggling  Uterary  genius  was 
not  likely  to  be  made  in  vain.  Burke,  who  had  much  on 
his  hands  at  the  time,  gave  inmiediate  attention  to  the 
poems  enclosed,  recognised  their  merit,  sent  for  the  author, 
recommended  him  to  Dodsley  the  publisher,  introduced 
him  to  Johnson,  asked  him  on  a  lengthened  visit  to 
Beaconsfleld,  and,  finding  that  Crabbe  had  fortunately 
received  a  better  education  than  boys  in  his  father's  rank 
in  life  generally  received  in  those  days,  and  that  he  had  a 
wish  to  enter  the  Church,  used  his  influence  with  one  of 
the  episcopal  sentries  to  get  this  irregularly-educated 
candidate  for  Holy  Orders  examined  and  duly  ordained. 
The  whole  story  is  equally  honourable  to  both  the  actors 
in  it ;  the  odd  thing  is  that,  while  Burke's  generous  part 
in  it  is  justly  remembered  and  recorded  to  his  credit,  the 
author  whom  he  thought  it  worth  while  to  befriend  in 
this  manner  has  been  nearly  forgotten.  Even  Mr  John 
Morley  (from  whom  one  might  have  expected  better 
things),  in  his  biographical  study  of  Burke,  whilst  men- 
tioning the  incident  to  the  credit  of  Burke's  character, 
passes  over  the  object  of  his  generosity  as  a  person  of  no 
consequence  at  all,  merely  observing,  in  reference  to 
Crabbe's  claim  to  assistance,  'I  can  hardly  expect  the 
reader  to  be  acquainted  with  the  **  Parish  Begister  " ' — a 
sentence  which  shows  that  Mr  Morley  himself  knew  little 
of  Crabbe's  works,  or  he  would  have  known  that  the 
*  Parish  Register'  was  not  written  till  many  years  later, 
and  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Burke's  recognition 
of  the  poet. 

Crabbe's  first  clerical  appointment  was  as  curate  at 
Aldborough;  and  one  can  imag^e  how  the  natives,  in- 
cluding his  own  father,  must  have  been  bewildered  by  the 
contrast  between  his  position  when  he  quitted  them — ^an 
obscure  youth,  who  was  locally  regarded  as  a  failure,  and 
his  return  as  an  ordained  clergyman  and  an  author  of 
repute,  the  friend  and  correspondent  of  some  of  the  most 
notable  men  of  his  day.  But  although  he  had  made  use 
of  his  literary  genius  as  a  lever  to  lift  himself  out  of 


THE   POEMS   OF   CRABBE  81 

remembrance  of  his  own  mother's  death  probably 
permeated  this  passage.  She  was  one  of  the  old  school  of 
gentle  evangelical  saints,  the  best  of  whom,  whatever  we 
may  think  of  their  intellectual  position,  surely  furnished 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  types  of  womanly  character  on 
record.    A  touching  little  trait  of  her  is  recorded  in  the 

*  Life.'  When  she  was  sinking  slowly  under  a  Ungering 
illness  she  enquired  one  morning  after  a  neighbour  who 
was  also  dying,  and  hearing  that  the  latter  still  lived,  said, 

*  She  must  make  haste,  or  I  shall  be  at  rest  before  her.' 

It  was,  however,  in  his  later  poems — ^the  social  sketches 
included  under  the  general  title  '  The  Borough,'  and  the 
stories  included  under  that  of  '  Tales  of  the  Hall ' — that 
Crabbe  showed  his  real  powers  in  a  series  of  studies  of 
human  character  which  constitute,  in  Matthew  Arnold's 
phrase,  <  a  criticism  of  life.'  Of  the  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  the  truth  of  observation,  and  the  variety  and 
piquancy  of  delineation  of  manners  and  character  dig- 
played  in  these  poems  of  his  maturer  period,  it  would  in- 
deed be  difKcidt  to  speak  too  highly.  The  literary  weak- 
ness of  dififuseness  and  digression  in  the  structural  portion 
of  the  narrative,  already  referred  to,  will  no  doubt  be  felt 
in  many,  though  not  in  all  of  his  poems,  and  may  be  attri- 
buted to  the  fact  that,  throughout  his  life,  Crabbe  (as 
already  observed)  wrote,  so  to  speak,  as  an  amateur. 
Primarily,  he  was  a  country  clergyman,  not  an  author ; 
his  writing  was  in  the  nature  of  afi  inteUectual  relaxation, 
prompted  x>Artly  by  the  desire  to  put  on  record  the  im- 
pressions he  had  gained  from  a  keen  observation  of  life  as 
it  was  lived  around  him.  Had  he  made  literature  the 
business  of  his  life,  and  subordinated  everything  else  to  it, 
he  would  probably  have  been  led  to  bestow  greater  atten- 
tion on  concentration  in  style,  and  would  have  discovered 
that  in  poetry  whatever  is  redundant  is  a  positive  mis- 
chief, and  not  a  mere  superfluity  which  can  be  ignored. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  might  not,  in  that  case,  have  re- 
tained so  completely  one  invaluable  quality,  which  goes 
far  to  atone  for  a  certain  amount  of  slackness  in  literary 
style — ^his  absolute  and  uncompromising  sincerity.  No  one 
was  more  incapable  of  a  false  or  affected  sentiment ;  no 
poet  was  ever  more  free  from  the  least  suspicion  of  writing 
for  effect,  or  of  adopting  a  literary  or  a  moral  pose.  And 
with  this  simplicity  and  directness  of  intention,  his  un- 


THE   POEMS   OP   CRABBE  83 

The  title  of  the  poem  *The  Borough/  published  in  1809, 
promised  at  once  a  larger  range  of  subject  than  the 
*  Parish  Register/  and  enabled  the  poet  to  group  under 
one  heading  a  whole  series  of  sketches  of  men  and  manners 
— ^the  various  professions,  the  trustees  and  inmates  of  the 
almshouse,  the  clubs  and  social  meetings  of  the  pla.ce,  in  a 
series  of  *  Letters,'  forming  a  complete  microcosm  of  the 
life  of  a  small  seaport  town.  In  his  peroration  he  touches 
on  his  own  position ;  the  poet's  study  of  life  was  not  for 
gain ;  the  interest  of  the  study  itself  was  its  own  reward: — 

*  For  this  the  Poet  looks  the  world  around. 
Where  form  and  life  and  reasoning  man  are  found ; 
He  loves  the  mind  in  all  its  modes  to  trace, 
And  all  the  manners  of  the  changing  race ; 
Silent  he  walks  the  road  of  life  along. 
And  views  the  aims  of  its  tumultuous  throng ; 
He  finds  what  shapes  the  Proteus-passions  take, 
And  what  strange  waste  of  life  and  joy  they  make/ 

The  poem,  from  beginning  to  end,  illustrates  the  mental 
attitude  here  indicated.  In  actual  life  the  author  was  the 
kindly  friend  and  monitor  of  his  parishioners ;  in  thought 
he  was  among  them,  but  not  of  them,  seeing  the  whole 
curious  little  masquerade  pass  by  him,  half  sad  over  its 
misdeeds  or  sorrows,  half  amused  at  its  follies. 

The  'Clubs  and  Social  Meetings'  are  depicted  with 
great  vivacity ;  the  description  of  the  *  Club  of  Smokers,' 
with  its  sleepy  conversation  punctuated  by  the  draw  of 
the  pipe,  carries  one  back  to  the  time  when  a  smoker  was 
more  or  less  of  an  outlaw ;  the  amenities  of  the  whist  club 
are  still  better.  The  section  entitled  'The  Almshouse 
and  Trustees'  supplies  some  of  the  most  powerful  and 
incisive  portraits.  Among  the  trustees  was  the  great 
man  of  the  place,  Sir  Denys  Brand,  a  type  of  the  social 
sultan,  whose  portrait  is  evidently  finished  con  amove; 
who  built  the  public  Boom,  revived  the  races,  instituted 
the  lifeboat — *his  were  no  vulgar  charities' — and  brow- 
beat the  whole  place,  while  keeping  up  a  calculated  osten- 
tation of  humility  in  his  personal  equipment.  His  scantily 
furnished  private  room  contrasted  effectively  with  the 
luxury  of  the  servants'  hall,  and  all  the  rest  was  in  keep- 
ing:— 

*  An  old  brown  pony  'twas  his  will  to  ride, 
Who  shuffled  onward  and  from  side  to  side ' ; 
Vol.  193.— iVb.  385.  D 


THE   POEMS   OF   CRABBE  85 

And  need  and  misery,  vice  and  danger  bind 
In  sad  alliance  each  degraded  mind. 

That  window  view  I — oiled  paper  and  old  glass 
Stain  the  strong  rays  which,  though  impeded,  pass, 
And  give  a  dusty  warmth  to  that  huge  room, 
The  conquered  sunshine's  melancholy  gloom ; 
When  all  those  western  rays,  without  so  bright. 
Within  become  a  ghastly  glimmering  light, 
As  pale  and  faint  upon  the  floor  they  fall, 
Or  feebly  gleam  on  the  opposing  wall ; 
That  floor,  once  oak,  now  pieced  with  fir  unplaned. 
Or  where  not  pieced,  in  places  bored  and  stained ; 
That  wall,  once  whitened,  now  ah  odious  sight, 
Stain'd  with  all  hues,  except  its  ancient  white ; 
The  only  door  is  fastened  by  a  pm 
Or  stubborn  bar,  that  none  may  hurry  in ; 
For  this  poor  room,  like  rooms  of  greater  pride. 
At  times  contains  what  prudent  men  would  hide. 

«  «  «  »  « 

High  hung  at  either  end,  and  next  the  wall. 
Two  ancient  mirrors  show  the  forms  of  all. 
In  all  their  force — ^these  aid  them  in  their  dress. 
But  with  the  good,  the  evils  too  express. 
Doubling  each  look  of  care,  each  token  of  distress 

The  concluding  line  is  surely  a  masterstroke  of  conceii- 
trated  force. 

The  series  of  '  Tales,'  not  bound  together  by  connexion 
with  any  special  subject,  which  were  published  in  1812, 
includes,  among  some  work  of  minor  interest,  two  or 
three  of  Crabbe's  most  successful  efforts.  ^The  Squire  and 
the  Priest,'  though  not  in  every  respect  one  of  the  best, 
has  special  interest  as  illustrating  Crabbe's  unclerical  im- 
partiality. The  story  turns  on  the  project  of  a  coarse-minded 
old  squire,  tired  of  being  preached  at,  to  present  to  the 
living  (in  his  own  gift)  a  young  relative  whom  he  had 
educated  into  proper  views,  as  he  hoped,  on  the  difference 
between  the  sins  of  the  rich  and  those  of  the  poor;  and  his 
dire  disappointment  when  his  prot4g^  turned  against  him 
in  the  ptdpit.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  humour  in  the 
old  gentleman's  exposition  of  his  system  of  religion  and 
morals ;  in  the  account  of  the  blundering  penitence  of  his 
dull-headed  bottle  companion,  and  of  the  efforts  of  his 
*  kept  lady '  to  improve  Hie  oceMM^^pom  ham^piai  point 
of  view.    With  such  a  subject,  fl^^^  any  ot||Bp  clerical 

D  2 


86  THE    POEMS    OF    CRABfiE 

poet  on  record  who  would  not  have  left  the  Christian 
minister  triumphant  ?    Crabbe  knew  life  better : — 

• 

'  James  too  has  trouble — ^he  diyided  sees 
A  parish  once  harmonious  and  at  ease ; 
With  him  united  are  the  simply  meek. 
The  warm,  the  sad,  the  nervous,  and  the  weak. 

•  •  •  *  « 

He  sighs  to  hear  the  jests  his  converts  cause ; 

He  cannot  give  their  erring  zeal  applause ; 

But  finds  it  inconsistent  to  condemn 

The  flights  and  follies  he  has  nursed  in  them : 

These,  in  opposing  minds,  contempt  produce. 

Or  mirth  occasion,  or  provoke  abuse ; 

On  each  momentous  theme  disgrace  they  bring, 

And  give  to  Scorn  her  poison  and  her  sting.' 

This  passage,  which  concludes  the  poem,  is  a  good  example 
also  of  one  literary  merit  of  Crabbers — ^he  never  ends 
weakly ;  he  always  has  a  terse  and  vigorous  line  to  sum 
up  and,  as  it  were,  clench  the  whole. 

In  '  The  Borough  *  Crabbe  had  attempted  to  give  a  cer- 
tain unity  to  the  poem  by  professing  to  describe  the  person- 
ages of  a  single  neighbourhood,  with  a  sketch  of  the  town 
as* a  background.  In  'Tales  of  the  Hall,'  the  latest  work 
published  during  his  lifetime,  he  sought  the  same  end  by 
another  device,  that  of  representing  the  tales  as  told  be- 
tween two  half-brothers  who,  having  been  strangers  for 
many  years,  meet  at  the  country  seat  of  the  elder  one,  and 
exchange  stories  over  their  wine,  or  hear  them  from  one 
or  two  friends  and  neighbours.  This  is  slight  enough  as 
a  narrative  basis,  but  it  serves  its  purpose ;  the  personality 
of  the  brothers,  George  and  Richard,  is  sufficiently  defined 
to  give  us  an  interest  in  them,  while  the  stories  of  their 
respective  love  affairs  form  two  of  the  best  sections  of  the 
poem.  *  Tales  of  the  Hall '  is  undoubtedly  Crabbe*8  best 
work,  and  a  remarkable  production  for  a  man  of  sixty- 
five  who  describes  it  (in  the  preface)  as  merely  *  the  fruits 
of  his  leisure.'  His  style  is  here  more  sustained  and 
elevated  than  in  most  of  his  earlier  works ;  his  interest  in 
life  is  wider ;  and  he  strikes  deeper  chords  of  feeling  and 
passion  than  he  had  ever  struck  before. 

There  is  only  space  here  to  indicate  briefly  the  nature 
of  the  interest  Oi wakened  by  the  various  tales  which  make 


THE    POEMS    OF    CRABBE  37 

the  sum  of  the  book,  and  the  variety  of  characters  and 
situations  which  it  contains.  *  Buth '  is  the  tragic  story 
of  a  gentle  girl  who  has  loved  too  well  and  been  deserted, 
but  who  has  discernment  and  delicacy  enough  to  feel  that 
the  loveless  marriage  which  her  parents  would  now  force 
upon  her  is  a  prostitution  of  a  far  deeper  dye  than  her 
first  fault. 

* "  A  second  time," 
Sighing  she  said, ''  shall  I  commit  the  crime, 
And  now  imtempted? 


I  t*  9 


and  drowns  herself  in  the  sea  rather  than  have  the  pro- 
fanation forced  upon  her.  The  whole  is  in  Crabbe's 
best  manner,  rising  to  a  tragic  ring  at  the  close.  'The 
Preceptor  Husband,'  one  of  the  best  of  the  stories  in 
Crabbe's  lighter  vein,  relates  the  disillusionment  of  a  man 
of  learning  who  had  been  caught  by  an  empty-headed  girl 
with  just  wit  enough  to  play  up  to  him.  The  first  waning 
of  the  honeymoon  is  touched  off  in  one  of  those  mischievous 
couplets  in  which  Crabbe  transfixes,  at  one  thrust,  a  whole 
category  of  social  or  domestic  shams : — 


*  'Twas  now  no  longer,  "  Just  what  you  approve  " ; 
But  "  Let  the  wild  fowl  be  to-day,  my  love.' 


tf  t 


'  The  Bachelor's  Story,'  the  autobiography  of  an  elderly 
gentleman  who  had  been  shipwrecked  in  four  successive 
attempts  at  matrimony,  is  one  of  Crabbe's  finest  efforts, 
half  pathetic,  half  humorous,  and  rising  to  a  noble  strain 
of  philosophic  refiection  at  the  close.  A  moral  of  another 
kind  emerges  from  the  next  tale,  '  Delay  has  Danger,'  the 
story  of  a  man,  engaged  to  a  gifted  and  superior  gu-1, 
wrecking  his  whole  happiness  through  the  mere  weak- 
ness of  not  being  able  to  resist  love-making  to  a  pretty 
but  commonplace  lass  with  whom  he  was  accidentally 
brought  into  contact.  The  account  of  the  gradual  pro^^ 
gress  of  his  infatuation,  with  the  revulsion  of  feeling 
that  followed  the  moment  after  he  had  committed  himself 
irrevocably — 

* "  I  will,"  she  softly  whispered ;  but  the  roar 
Of  cannon  would  not  strike  his  spirit  more ' — 

and  the  blankness  of  all  the  world  to  him  the  morning 
after,  should  be  read  by  all  young  men  who  are  in  danger 


THE    POEMS    OF    CRABBE  89 

the  history  of  a  romantic  and  foolish  passion,  aroused  by 
a  girl  whom  he  had  casually  met,  whose  surname  even 
he  did  not  know,  and  whom  he  lost  sight  of  for  years — a 
passion  which  preyed  upon  him  and  weakened  his  mind 
for  any  purpose  in  life,  until  in  an  equally  casual  way  he 
met  her  again  as  somebody's  cadt-off  mistress  and  the  in- 
mate of  a  disorderly  lodging-house.  The  meeting  is  told 
in  Crabbe's  most  incisive  style.  The  narrator  had  been 
commissioned  by  the  head  of  his  firm  to  ask  an  explana- 
tion of  another  house  as  to  an  unsatisfactory  document ; 
he  was  too  late  to  catch  the  principal  partner,  but  was 
referred  to  an  address  where  he  might  find  him : — 

*  I  found,  though  not  with  ease,  this  private  seat 

Of  soothing  quiet,  wisdom's  still  retreat. 

*  •  •  *  * 

The  shutters  half  unclosed,  the  curtains  fell 

Half  down,  and  rested  on  the  window  sill. 

And  thus,  confusedly,  made  the  room  half  visible. 

Late  as  it  was,  the  little  parlour  bore 

Some  tell-tale  tokens  of  the  night  before ; 

There  were  strange  sights  and  scents  about  the  room. 

Of  food  high-season'd,  and  of  strong  perfume ; 

Two  unmatch'd  sofas  ample  rents  displayed. 

Carpet  and  curtains  were  alike  decay'd ; 

A  large  old  mirror,  with  once  gilded  frame. 

Reflected  prints  that  I  forbear  to  name. 

Such  as  a  youth  might  purchase — ^but,  in  truth, 

Not  a  sedate  or  sober-minded  youth : 

The  cinders  yet  were  sleeping  in  the  grate 

Warm  from  the  fire,  continued  large  and  late. 

As  left,  by  careless  folk,  in  their  neglected  state ; 

The  chairs  in  haste  seem'd  whirl'd  about  the  room, 

As  when  the  sons  of  riot  hurry  home. 

And  leave  the  troubled  place  to  solitude  and  gloom/ 

The  man  of  business  was  not  forthcoming,  but  the  lady 
lodger  had  heard  the  old  name,  and  enters  hurriedly, 
•  speaking  ere  in  sight '  :— 

*  But  is  it  she  ?    O !  yes ;  the  rose  is  dead. 
All  beauty,  fragrance,  freshness,  glory  fled : 
But  yet  'tis  she — the  same  and  not  the  same — 
Who  to  my  bower  a  heavenly  being  came ; 
Who  waked  my  soul's  first  thought  of  real  bliss, 
Whom  long  I  sought,  and  now  I  find  her — ^this. 


THE    POEMS    OF    CRABBE  41 

ence>  are  briefly  but  powerfully  described  in  the  remaining 
portion  of  the  narrative,  which  the  speaker  sums  up  in 
the  following  lines : — 

*  Yet  much  is  lost,  and  not  yet  much  is  found, 
But  what  remains,  I  would  believe,  is  sound ; 
That  first  wild  passion,  that  last  mean  desire. 
Are  felt  no  more ;  but  holier  hopes  require 

A  mind  prepared  and  steady — my  ref oi*m 

Has  fears  like  his,  who,  suffering  in  a  storm, 

Is  on  a  rich  but  unknown  country  cast. 

The  future  fearing,  while  he  feels  the  past ; 

But  whose  more  cheerful  mind,  with  hope  imbued, 

Sees  through  receding  clouds  the  rising  good.' 

Although  the  human  interest  is  always  paramount 
with  Crabbe,  he  has  an  eye  to  the  scenic  setting  of  his 
drama,  and  even  where  there  is  no  lengthened  or  detailed 
description  we  seem  to  be  conscious  of  the  background. 
The  influence  of  the  flat  dreary  landscape  of  the  Suffolk  sea- 
coast,  with  its  marshy  tracts  and  its  miles  of  shingle  beach, 
seems  indeed  to  have  got  into  his  blood,  and  colours  his 
scenes  almost  unawares  to  the  reader  and  perhaps  to  him- 
self. Where  he  gives  special  attention  to  the  landscape  he 
is,  as  already  observed,  essentially  a  realist ;  he  brings  it 
before  us  by  a  series  of  minute  touches,  as  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  fen  country  in  '  The  Lover's  Journey,'  and  the 
admirable  painting  of  the  melancholy  morning  landscape 
which  Tennyson  so  much  admired  in  *  Delay  has  Danger.* 
In  less  detailed  descriptions  he  has  nevertheless  very  real 
touches ;  in  the  section  on  *  Prisons '  in  *  The  Borough,'  the 
walk  through  the  lane  and  over  the  cliffs  down  to  the  bay 
is  sketched  so  that  we  seem  to  accompany  the  party  on 
their  route  ;  in  everything  concerning  the  sea  (for  which 
he  had  a  passion)  he  is  truthful  and  observant ;  we  see  on 
a  calm  hot  day  the 

*  Faint  lazy  waves  o'er-creep  the  ridgy  sand, 
Or  tap  the  tarry  boat  with  gentle  blow '; 

the  long  stretch  of  coast  *  where  all  is  pebbly  length  of 
shore';  the  strong  ebb-tide  running  out  between  the 
*  stakes  and  seaweed  withering  on  the  mud,' 

*  And  higher  up,  a  ridge  of  all  things  base. 
Which  some  strong  tide  has  rolled  upon  the  place.' 


42  THE    POEMS    OF    CRABBE 

Occasionally,  though  rarely,  he  can  give  us  one  of  those 
true  poetic  generalisations  which  seem  to  sum  up  the  spirit 
of  the  scene  in  a  single  line,  as  in  the  cahn  where  we  see 

*  Ships  softly  sinking  in  the  sleepy  sea,* 

or  the  bright  fresh  incident  in  the  morning  scene  in  *  Tales 
of  the  Hall," 

'  The  morning  breeze  had  urged  the  quickening  mill ' — 

recalling  one  element  of  the  picturesque  which  is  now  all 
but  swept  away  from  English  landscape. 

Reference  ought  to  be  made,  before  concluding,  to  three 
poems  of  Crabbe's  which  are  exceptional  among  his  works 
both  in  form  and  feeling — *  Sir  Eustace  Grey,'  *  The  Hall  of 
Justice,'  and  *  The  World  of  Dreams,' ;  all  comparatively 
early  poems,  in  which  a  lather  free  stanza  form  takes  the 
place  of  the  rhymed  couplet,  and  which  contain  passages 
of  great  power  and  pathos,  though  they  are  somewhat 
crude  in  form  and    expression.      These  are  of    special 
interest  as  indicating  that  Crabbe,  had  he  devoted  himself 
entirely  to  poetry,  might  have  proved  that  he  possessed 
higher  imaginative  power  and  greater  versatility  in  liter- 
ary handling  than  would  be  surmised  from  the  realistic 
tendency  and  the  uniformity  of  style  which  characterise 
the  bulk  of  his  poems.     It  is  by  these  latter,  however — ^by 
his  studies  of  human  nature,  character,  and  passion,  drawn 
from  direct  observation  of  life — ^that  he  is  mainly  to  be 
judged;  it  is  in  these  that  his  peculiar  powers  are  dis- 
played ;  and  the  reader  will,  we  hope,  admit  that  even  the 
inadequate  illustration  furnished  by  the  foregoing  remarks 
and  quotations  is  sufiBcient  to  justify  the  question  already 
propounded — what  have  our  literary  critics  been  about, 
that  they  have  suffered  such  a  writer  to  drop  into  neglect 
and  obUvion  ? 

In  conclusion,  let  it  be  added  that  we  do  not  think  any 
i*eal  good  has  been  done  for  Grabbe's  reputation  by  the 
well-intended  efforts  of  Fitzgerald  and  of  Mr  Holland  to 
reintroduce  him  to  the  public  by  selections  and  extracts. 
Fitzgerald  indeed  took  what,  considering  that  he  had  a 
real  and  enthusiastic  admiration  for  Crabbe,  must  be  ccdled 
the  reprehensible  course  of  partially  re-writing  and  alter- 
ing passages,  to  get  rid  of  what  he  considered  to  be  the 


THE    POEMS    OF    CRABBE  43 

poet's  defects.  A  poet,  who  is  not  worth  retaining  except 
in  this  left-handed  fashion,  had  better  be  dropped.  But 
we  maintain  that  Crabbe's  weaknesses,  as  regards  their 
quantity  at  all  events,  have  been  greatly  exaggerated. 
In  Shelley's  complete  works,  the  proportion  of  writing 
which  is  not  worthy  of  Shelley  at  his  best  is  much  greater 
than  the  proportioi)  of  Crabbe  which  is  below  his  best ; 
yet  no  one  objects  to  a  complete  edition  of  Shelley.  And 
in  many  cases  a  real  injustice  is  done  to  the  poet  by 
divorcing  his  best  passages  from  their  surroundings.  Mr 
Holland,  for  instance,  gives  as  a  separate  short  poem, 
under  the  title  *  The  Old  Bachelor,'  the  noble  concluding 
lines  on  old  age  from  '  The  Bachelor's  Story '  in  ^  Tales  of 
the  Hall.'  Yet  we  venture  to  say  that  this  passage,  taken 
alone,  does  not  produce  half  so  strong  an  impression  on 
the  reader  as  it  does  when  read  as  the  climax  and  sum- 
ming up  of  the  whole  poem.  What  we  wish  to  see  is  a 
re-issue— with  some  emendations  in  respect  of  punctua- 
tion and  misprints— of  Murray's  beautiful  edition  of  1834  ; 
and  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  the  time  is  ripe  for  it. 


THE   fiASt    tNftIA   COMPANY  46 

the  Oladgow  graduate,  the  emmently  disting^shed  com- 
petitor for  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  started  on  his  career 
in  the  East  not  only  with  the  usual  ambitions,  but  in  the 
spirit  of  the  schools  of  Paris  and  of  Bonn.  He  was  irre- 
pressiblj  sanguine,  and  at  the  same  time  emotional  and 
susceptible;  viewing  human  existence  generally  in  its 
brightest  and  most  favourable  lights,  and  very  desirous 
to  make  the  best  and  the  most  of  it.  His  own  exception- 
ally busy  and  varied  life  offered  in  many  departments 
abundant  opportunities.  Looking  back  upon  it,  we  are 
inclined  to  judge  that  he  availed  himself  of  every  chance 
and  missed  none  of  his  openings.  He  loved  to  meet  with 
men,  he  loved  to  read  and  write  and  think  of  men  who 
had  engrossed  the  literary  or  political  stage,  who  had 
subjected  to  themselves  a  wide  region  of  literature  or  of 
politics.  To  be  counted  among  such  men  was  in  some  sort 
his  own  aim.  Nor  need  we  hesitate  to  afSrm  that  he  has 
obtained  a  place  of  this  kind  for  his  memory. 

If  he  was  always  imaginative,  not  less  was  he  al- 
ways industrious.  If  he  enjoyed  life  and  letters,  and 
if  in  life  and  letters  he  enjoyed  most  the  study  of 
character  and  of  personality,  it  was  to  life  at  the 
desk,  to  official  work,  to  the  sedtdous  comparison  and 
computation  of  unadorned  facts  and  figures  that,  for 
many  years,  he  day  by  day  not  unwillingly  devoted  him- 
self. Here  peculiar  facilities  fell  in  his  path  and  were 
seized  upon.  Here  his  skill  was  quite  unprecedented,  and 
so  was  his  success.  His  fame  rests,  and  will  rest,  on  his 
toil  rather  as  an  editor  than  as  an  author,  on  his  powers 
of  organisation  and  of  superintendence  rather  than  on  his 
own  final  and  finished  contributions  to  history  and  to  bio- 
graphy. He  exercised,  and  with  wonderful  mastery,  a 
great  command  over  able  men  and  over  vast  materials. 
With  regard  to  the  history  of  British  India,  he  has  been 
the  chief  surveyor  and  '  prospector,'  the  chief  road-maker, 
the  chief  contractor  and  employer  of  literary  labour,  the 
statistician-in-chief.  His  official  and  literary  activity  and 
influence  in  general,  well  worthy  as  they  are  of  commentary, 
we  cannot  on  this  occasion  discuss;  what  we  have  to  con- 
sider is  that  incomplete  summary  and  supplement  to  the 
rest  of  his  work  on  which,  during  the  last  year  or  two  of 
his  life,  he  was  engaged. 

It  is  as  though  the  author,  even  if  not  guessing  that 


THE    EAST   INDIA    COMPANY  47 

among  histories  of  European  and,  in  particular,  of  English 
commerce  with  India.  In  spite  of  repetitions  and  disloca- 
tions, contradictions,  over-hasty  and  over-bold  generali- 
sations and  assumptions,  our  intrepid  and  indefatigable 
explorer  has,  in  this  his  last  literary  campaign,  entered 
upon  and  captured  unoccupied  and  difiSlcult  territory,  where- 
in he  maintains,  and  is  likely  for  the  present  to  maintain, 
a  species  of  sovereign  title. 

We  have  said  that,  especially  in  the  first  volume,  the 
symptoms  of  haste  were  everywhere ;  and  it  is  incumbent 
upon  us  to  justify  the  criticism.  Some  of  the  leading  aspects 
of  Indo-Portuguese  history  are  cleverly  handled,  but,  on 
the  whole,  no  comparison  is  admissible,  with  regard  to  their 
real  value  as  an  addition  to  our  knowledge  and  insight, 
between  Sir  W.  Hunter's  Portuguese  chapters  and  Mr  B.  S, 
Whiteway's  almost  exactly  contemporary  volume,  •  The 
Rise  of  Portuguese  Power  in  India.'  What  are  we  to 
think  of  Sir  W.  Hunter  leaving  in  two  places*  his  authori- 
ties  imamended,  so  that,  for  all  he  tells  us,  we  might  sux>- 
pose  that  Mohammed  died  and  was  buried  not  at  Medina 
butat  Mecca.  As  to  his  Dutch  chapters  we  shall  have  to 
begm  our  remarks  on  them  with  considerable  distrust  of 
his  argument  and  to  end  quite  out  of  agreement  with 
his  conclusions.  In  our  view  he  is  here  almost  perversely 
wrong  in  his  appreciation,  and  one  or  two  examples  will 
be  enough  to  show  how  untrustworthy  is  his  manner  of 
citing  and  of  co-ordinating  and  subordinating  facts.  He 
tells  us  t  that  the  London  merchants  in  Founders'  Hall 
had  before  them,  on  September  22nd,  1599,  three  models, 
one  being  the  semi-state  pattern  of  the  Dutch.  But  this 
semi-state  pattern  did  not  come  into  existence  till  the 
year  1602.  Again  he  informs  us  thatt  'the  chances  of  the 
Company  rose  and  fell  with  the  fluctuations  of  parties, 
the  older  politicians  like  Burleigh  being  for  peace.'  The 
Company  was  founded  December  31st,  1600.  Lord  Burghley 
departed  this  life  August  4th,  1598.  Once  more  he  assures 
us  that  the  smaller  islands  of  the  Banda  group  §  *  are  not 
mentioned  in  Vivien  de  Saint-Martin's  great '  Dictionary  of 
Geography '  (Paris,  1879).  They  are  to  be  found  enumer- 
ated in  that  work  under  the  heading  'Banda,'  and  a  second 
time  under  the  heading  *  Moluques.'    As  with  regard  to 

*  *  A  History  of  British  India,'  i,  101,  and  124,  6.         f  Udd.,  i,  236. 
J  Ibid,,  i,  256  n.  §  IMd,,  i,  372  n. 


THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY  49 

Amsterdam.  For  a  moment  the  Dutch  were  in  despair. 
They  recovered  their  equanimity,  and  they  threw  theii* 
whole  strength  for  a  hundred  years  into  a  course  of  un- 
precedented daring  and  almost  fabulous  prosperity.  The 
earliest  incidents  are  the  following.  In  1501,  some  English 
merchants  sentout  a  tentative  expedition  to  the  East  Indies. 
Between  1595  and  1600  the  Netherlands  merchants  sent 
out  larger  and  more  fortunate  fleets.  Then,  in  1600,  the 
English  East  India  Company  secured  its  charter,  and  com- 
menced its  operations,  with  a  capital  of,  say,  70,0001^.,  to 
be  si>eedily  overtaken  and  outstripped,  in  1602,  by  the 
Dutch  East  India  Company — ^the  venture,  so  to  speak,  of 
a  whole  nation — ^with  a  capital  of,  say,  550,000Z. 

It  was,  accordingly,  as  an  incident  in  the  great  war 
with  Spain,  on  the  Spanish  seas,  on  the  sea-frontiers,  that 
this  armed  enterprise  of  the  Dutch  and  English  merchants 
and  skippers  began,  this  irreg^ar  advance,  as  of  seafaring 
sharpshooters  and  squatters,  apart  from,  to  some  extent, 
and  independent  of,  the  regular  conduct  of  the  war  in 
Europe.  The  year  in  which  the  smaller  Dutch  companies 
were  fused  into  the  great  Dutch  Eaet  India  Company  had 
been  already  marked  by  fighting  in  the  East  Indies  be- 
tween Dutch  and  Spanish  ships.  The  conflict  had  been 
not  unlike  that  carried  on  in  the  Channel,  fourteen  years 
before,  during  the  *  Great  Armada  *  sea^son.  The  triumph 
was  immediately  utilised  for  purposes  of  commerce  and 
settlement.  TheCompanysteppedin.  Trading  stations  were 
founded.  The  war,  from  the  flrst,  paid,  and  far  more  than 
paid,  its  expenses.  Besides,  the  Dutch  appeared  at  the  out- 
set, in  the  Indian  Archipelago,  as  deliverers  of  the  natives, 
as  sworn  opponents  of  the  Portuguese  and  Spanish 
tyranny,  in  the  guise — ^which  in  the  East  they  soon  lost 
— of  champions  of  freedom.  Jacob  van  Heemskerck, 
the  noblest  of  the  Dutch  naval  captains  of  those  times, 
the  Francis  Drake  of  the  Netherlands — ^who  had  braved 
every  climate  and  conquered  in  every  sea,  who  had  spent 
a  winter  in  Nova  Zembla,  and  who  was  to  meet  his  death 
at  the  moment  of  victory  in  a  great  battle  in  the  Bay  of 
Gibraltar — Jacob  van  Heemskerck  distinguished  himself, 
in  this  same  first  year  of  the  Dutch  Company's  under- 
takings, by  seizing  a  splendid  prize,  a  Portuguese  carrack, 
at  Malacca,  and  coasting  in  her  as  far  as  Macao.  From  Java 
the  Dutch  sailed  tof  Banda,  everywhere  intent  on  mak''*'» 
Vol.  198.-3^0.  385.  B 


50  THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY 

treaties  with  the  local  potentates,  which  were  to  transfer 
the  monopoly  of  trade  from  Portugal  to  Holland ;  while, 
at  the  same  time,  the  Dutch  met  the  natives  on  equal 
terms,  professing,  at  all  events  at  first,  to  have  no  inten- 
tion of  interfering  with  their  reUgion,  their  customs,  or 
their  liberties.  Indeed,  the  king  of  Acheen,  or  Sumatra, 
was  invited  to  send  a  royal  embassy  to  Holland,  to  inform 
himself  as  to  the  Western  World,  to  assure  himself  of  the 
feud  between  the  Dutch  and  the  Spaniards  and  Portu- 
guese, and  of  the  general  revolt  on  the  European  sea- 
board against  the  theories  and  practices,  ecclesiastical, 
civil,  and  mercantile,  of  Rome,  Madrid,  and  Lisbon.  Ar- 
rived in  Europe,  these  envoys  were  presented  to  Prince 
Maurice  in  the  lines  before  Grave  at  a  conjuncture  when 
the  fortune  and  discipline  of  the  Dutch  army — and,  not 
least,  of  the  English  contingent — ^had  reached  the  highest 
point  of  fame,  while  their  opponents  were  at  the  other 
extreme  of  military  repute,  disorderly  and  dispirited,  and, 
to  a  large  extent,  in  declared  mutiny. 

The  whole  Dutch  community,  firm  after  firm,  city  after 
city,  province  after  province,  embarked  in  the  enterprise 
of  the  East  India  Company.  It  was  a  way  of  both  beating 
the  enemy  and  bettering  the  trade,  of  weakening  war  at 
close  quarters  while  accomplishing  distant  conquests ;  it 
obtained  inunediately  gigantic  commercial  returns;  it 
opened  out  upon  almost  defenceless  and  unbounded  tracts 
of  sea  and  land.  The  Universal  Dutch  East  India  Com- 
pany was  a  great  national  venture  for  a  century — ^indeed, 
for  centuries — ^in  which  the  spirit  of  association  passed  from 
the  States-General  and  the  municipal  councils  to  the  ships, 
from  port  to  port,  animated  the  cabin  and  the  factory, 
bound  up  the  whole  cause  of  the  Netherlands  with  the 
acquisition  and  administration  of  one  group  after 
another  of  the  islands  of  the  East  Indies.  Three  years, 
wo  may  say,  sufficed  for  the  capture  of  the  richest  little 
cluster  of  colonies,  the  most  compact  and  productive  island 
realm  on  our  planet.  What  had  been  the  central  mine 
of  wealth  in  the  King  of  Portugal's  monopoly  was  now 
to  be  worked  by,  perhaps,  the  keenest,  the  shrewdest, 
the  boldest,  and,  as  it  ere  long  became,  the  most 
g^rasping  and  the  least  scrupulous  commercial  con- 
federacy Christendom  has  ever  seen.  Europe  looked  on 
amazed — here  and  there  the  old-fashioned  Dutch  citizen 


THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY  51 

must  have  shared  with  sad  foreboding  the  amazement — 
at  this  state  within  and  beyond  the  state,  this  republic 
within  and  beyond  the  republic,  at  this  attempt  to  direct 
first  a  particular  and  then  a  universal  commerce  from 
the  counting-houses  of  Amsterdam,  at  war  waged  ex- 
plicitly for  treasure,  at  treasure  extorted  methodically  by 
war.  Thus  Holland  passed  into  the  room  of  Portugal, 
and  with  a  wider  and  more  vast,  if  a  vaguer,  a  coarser,  a 
more  commonplace  ambition.  What  Venice  had  been, 
when  mistress  of  the  Mediterranean  waters,  Holland  be- 
came ;  what  had  been  the  maxims  and  measures  of  Venice 
became  the  maxims  and  measures  of  Holland,  only  more 
cynical  and  more  cruel,  in  the  Indian  Archipelago.  A 
great  insular  isolated  colonial  Power  the  Dutch  gained, 
organised,  and  have  maintained  to  this  day.  A  great  im- 
perial policy  they  have  never  instituted ;  nor  is  an3rthing 
more  foreign,  to  the  Dutch  national  genius  as  such  than 
the  bare  conception  of  such  a  policy. 

There  was  this  difference  from  the  beginning,  a  differ- 
ence strongly  marked  even  in  the  first  quarter  of  a  century, 
in  the  history  of  the  two  companies,  when  militant  Prince 
Maurice  was  Dutch  Stadtholder  and  pacific  James  Stewart 
was  English  king.  They  died  in  the  same  year,  1625, 
within  a  month  of  each  other.  Prince  Maurice,  for 
all  his  forcefulness,  could  not  keep  in  check  his  sea- 
captains  in  the  East ;  King  James,  for  aU  his  flightiness, 
never  let  his  London  company  slip  out  of  his  control.  And 
James,  here,  was  even  willing  to  hazard  much ;  he  had  a 
plan,  from  which  we  do  not  know  that  he  ever  quite  re- 
ceded, for  amalgamating  the  Dutch  and  English  companies. 

It  may  be  that,  if  the  English  had  been  able  to  displace 
the  Dutch  in  the  Spice  Islands,  they  themselves  might 
never  have  cared,  in  those  regions  towards  which  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  points  and  leads,  for  inland,  conti- 
nental, imperial  sway.  It  is  probable  that,  in  such  a  case, 
the  English  would  have  been  content  to  be  merely  in  touch 
with  sites  like  Sierra  Leone,  the  Cape  itself,  Zanzibar, 
Aden,  Ormuz,  and  Ceylon ;  naturally,  what  they  would  have 
most  affected  and  preferred  would  have  been  a  lordship 
of  the  isles.  They  would  thus  in  time  have  dispossessed 
the  French  of  He  Dauphine,  He  de  France,  Be  de  Bourbon 
— ^Madagascar,  Mauritius,  Reunion ;  they  might  have  come 
into  collision  with  Spain  for  the  Philippines,  and  with 

E  2 


52  THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY 

China  for  Formosa;  they  might  have  anglicised  Japan. 
But  the  Indian  Peninsula,  especially  as  experiences  in 
America  grew  monitory  and  menacing,  we  can  imagine 
them  anxious  to  leave  alone,  ready  to  resign.  Think  what 
might  then  have  happened !  The  path  of  conquest  might 
have  lain  open  and  unencumbered  before  a  Dupleix  and  a 
Bussy;  the  French  might  have  become,  in  politics  and 
arms,  as  influential  on  the  continent  of  Asia  as  on  the 
continent  of  Europe — ^more  revolutionary,  more  imperiaL 
A  Napoleon,  for  whom  not  only  the  revolutions  of  Paris 
and  of  Europe,  but  those  of  Bengal,  of  the  Deccan,  and  of 
Delhi,  had  i>aved  the  way,  might,  indeed,  have  eclipsed 
Caesar,  and  left  to  his  marshals  more  to  divide  than 
Alexander  left  to  the  Diadochi. 

As  it  was,  the  English  had  to  retreat  before  the  Dutch 
from  the  Malay  Archipelago,  and  from  the  Spice  Islands. 
Bit  by  bit  the  Dutch  occupied  the  ground ;  over  one  island 
circle  after  another  they  established  their  authority.  In 
proportion  to  their  means,  and  judged  at  the  moment  of 
their  ascendency,  the  Dutch,  as  seafarers  and  as  specu* 
lators,  have  never  been  surpassed.  We  have  seen  how,  as 
against  the  English,  they  had  gained,  at  the  beg^inning  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  as  it  were  by  only  a  few  steps — 
a  ship's  length  or  two— precedence  and  predominance  in 
the  East,  how  they  claimed  and  secured  the  richest  market 
in  the  world,  how  they  held  the  posts  of  advance  towards 
further  discoveries.  Just  as,  three  or  four  generations 
previously,  the  West  Indies,  the  Bahamas,  the  Bermudas, 
Newfoundland,  had  guarded  or  revealed  the  approaches 
to  one  New  World,  so  did  the  Spice  Islands,  the  Moluccas, 
Japan,  lie  on  the  threshold  to  another.  The  progress 
would  soon  begin — and  the  Dutch  would  lead  it — ^into 
Melanesia,  into  Polynesia,  towards  the  colonisation  of  the 
Pacific.  But  here  again  the  history  of  final  settlement, 
the  inland,  continental,  imperial  history,  was  fated  to  be- 
long not  to  the  Dutch  but  to  the  English ;  the  acknowledged 
capitals  in  the  remoter  future  were  to  bear  such  names 
as  Sydney,  Adelaide,  Melbourne,  Hobart.  The  Dutch 
lived  in  the  present — no  nation,  in  the  first  quarter  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  so  much  and  so  successfully.  And 
throughout  the  seventeenth  century  they  pressed  and 
pursued  the  si>eeding  steps  of  fortune  with  the  whole 
array  of  their  national  resources  and  reserves. 


THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANV  63 

'  Hora  ruit '  is  said  to  have  been  the  favourite  motto  of 
Grotius.  '  Time  flies ;  snatch  the  opportunity ! '  No  motto 
would  more  appropriately  explain  the  heat  and  hurry  of 
the  contemporaries  and  countrymen  of  Grotius,  their  irri- 
tability,  their  restlessness,  their  impetuosity,  their  reck- 
lessness in  battle,  their  audacity  in  controversy,  their  im- 
patience of  contradiction,  in  Asia  their  barbarity  towards 
the  natives  and  their  exhaustion  of  the  soil,  their  fevered 
haste  to  get  rich. 

Here,  for  a  moment  or  two,  let  us  pass  from  the  first 
quarter  of  the  seventeenth  to  the  first  quarter  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  from  the  age  of  Elisabeth  and  James 
to  the  age  of  William  III  and  Anne,  and  the  accession 
of  the  House  of  Hanover.  We  shall  thus  dispense  our- 
selves from  returning  again  at  any  length  to  these  par- 
allels between  the  Dutch  and  the  English.  We  shall  also 
have  passed  from  the  situation  as  depicted  by  Sir  W. 
Hunter  at  the  end  of  his  first  to  that  left  with  us  at  the 
end  of  the  second  volume ;  and  we  shall  have  suggested 
the  lines  along  which  the  rash  and  unchastened  opinions 
of  the  former  volume  might  be  brought  into  harmony 
with  the  safer  and  more  sober  deductions  of  the  latter. 

Throughout  the  struggle  for  political  liberty  in  the 
West,  which  we  associate  with  the  Reformation  and  the 
revival  of  learning,  and  which  was  hardly  determined  till 
somewhere  about  the  year  1714,  the  Dutch  and  English 
fought  mainly  side  by  side.  In  the  movement  against  the 
autocratic,  the  absolutist  principle  in  Spain,  at  Home,  and, 
later,  at  Versailles,  honours  are  divided  between  the  Dutch 
and  the  English.  But  there  is  a  further  aspect,  in  which  the 
history  of  the  seventeenth  century,  both  in  the  distant 
Eastern  waters  and  in  the  narrow  seas  near  home,  is  that 
of  a  close  and  strenuous  opposition  of  Amsterdam  and  the 
Hague  against  London  and  Hampton  Court.  It  is  the 
history  of  the  fluctuations  between  Dutch  and  English 
trade  and  policy  and  progress.  There  were  possibilities 
of  the  balance  inclining  towards  the  United  Provinces 
rather  than  towards  the  United  Kingdom.  This  history, 
at  its  different  stages,  intensely  and  indeed  surpassingly 
interesting  as  it  is  for  our  race,  has  been  interpreted,  not 
always  quite  in  the  same  sense,  during  our  Victorian  era 
by  very  notable  historians  writing  in  our  language — 
IVoude,  Motley,  Carlyle,  Macatday,  Seeley.    No  one  has 


64  THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY 

reviewed  it  so  dispassionately,  no  one  has  analysed  it  so 
minutely,  as  our  greatest  living  historian,  Dr  Gardiner. 

The  reign  of  Elisabeth  begins  the  period.  She  is  at  once 
the  protectress  of  Dutch  independence  and  the  asserter  of 
the  liberties  of  England.  The  reign  of  WiUiam  III,  if  it 
does  not  set  a  term,  imparts  its  final  bias  to  the  period. 
He  again  is  both  champion  of  the  freedom  of  the  Nether* 
lands  and  defender  of  the  cause  of  the  British  Constitu- 
tion and  Parliament.  His  name,  given  to  Fort  William 
on  the  Hugli,  as  an  English  not  as  a  Dutch  citadel,  might 
be  taken  to  denote  at  once  an  Asiatic  landmark,  an  un- 
furling of  the  flag  of  Oreater  Britain,  and  a  great  mile- 
stone in  universal  history.  We  may  remind  ourselves  in 
passing  that  this  very  landmark  was  subsequently  at  a 
critical  instant  submerged,  and  that  it  was  the  genius  of 
Clive  that  bade  the  waters  subside.  The  same  genius  of 
Clive  it  was  that  checked  a  new  advance  of  the  Dutch  up 
the  Hugli  and  that  compelled  France  s  ultimate  consent 
to  the  hegemony  of  England  in  India.  But  just  now  it  is 
enough  for  us  to  keep  our  eye  on  William  of  Orange  and 
his  relation  to  Dutch  and  English  policy.  With  his  suc- 
cession to  the  crown  of  England  there  came  in  a  sort  of 
recognition — ^tardily  tendered  in  Europe,  still  more  slowly 
to  be  admitted  in  Asia — on  the  part  of  Holland,  of  English 
political  principles,  their  currency  and  their  genuineness, 
their  superiority,  their  supremacy,  among  the  free  States 
of  the  world.  We  might  add  that  a  somewhat  similar 
acceptance  Portugal  had  already  sig^nified. 

And  now  the  way  is  clear  for  us  to  examine,  within  the 
too  confined  limits  our  space  imposes,  the  English  move- 
ment, and  to  ask  ourselves  what  was  the  character  of  such 
English  expansion  as  can  be  said  to  have  begun  with  and 
to  have  taken  place  under  Queen  Elisabeth  and  King 
James.  We  hold  that,  in  imiversal  history,  this  was  for 
England  the  epoch  of  opportunity ;  and  that,  in  English 
history,  it  was  then  that  England  was  most  self-conscious. 

Here  again  our  narrative  must  convey  our  verdict  on 
the  treatment  in  Sir  W.  Hunter*s  first  volume  of  this  part 
of  our  theme.  We  will  quote  but  one  specimen  sentence 
of  his  (p.  351) :  *  The  English  company  was  the  weakling 
child  of  the  old  age  of  EUisabeth  and  of  the  shifty  policy 
of  King  James.'  It  seems  to  us  impossible  to  misread  and 
misrepresent  more  egreg^usly  than  is  done  in  such  a 


tHE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY  55 

dentence  as  this  the  whole  tone  and  tenor  of  the  age  and 
its  activity.  Let  us  put  over  against  this  sentence  from 
Sir  W.  Hunter  another  sentence  from  Dr  Creighton: 
*The  days  of  Elisabeth  were  emphatically  the  days  of 
the  hard-headed  and  long-headed  men';  and  let  us  sub- 
join to  this  sentence,  as  an  instance,  the  name  of  one  who 
was  bom  in  the  first  year  of  Queen  Elisabeth  and  died  in 
the  last  year  of  King  James,  Sir  Thomas  Smith  (1558-1625), 
the  first  Grovemor  of  the  East  India  Company. 

A  charter  had  been  granted,  as  we  saw,  to  the  London 
East  India  Company,  under  Elisabeth,  at  the  very  close  of 
the  century,  on  the  Slst  of  December  in  the  year  1600,  and, 
under  her,  the  first  voyage  had  set  forth.  It  came  back  into 
port  under  James.  The  venture  is  thus  a  legacy  from  the 
sixteenth  century  to  the  seventeenth,  and  towards  the 
fabric  which  the  latter  century  was  to  rear — a  legacy  from 
the  policy  of  the  Tudors  to  that  of  the  Stewarts,  from 
EHlsabeth  of  England  to  James  of  Britain.  It  marks  a 
continuous  policy.  One  is  apt  to  consider  the  reign  of 
Queen  Elisabeth  too  exclusively  in  relation  to  the  dynasty 
of  the  Tudors,  to  bring  her  into  comparison  and  contrast 
with  Henry  VII,  Henry  VIII,  Edward  VI,  and  Philip  and 
Mary,  and  to  make  a  break  at  her  death  ;  again  one  is  apt 
to  read  the  history  of  James  I  in  the  light,  chiefly,  of  sub- 
sequent events,  those  of  Charles  I's  reign,  of  the  Common- 
wealth, and  of  the  reigns  of  Charles  II  and  James  II.  But 
there  are  points  of  view  from  which  the  reign  of  the  last 
Tudor  and  that  of  the  first  Stewart  are  best  studied 
together.  Dr  Prothero  has  seen  this  in  his  collection  of 
statutes  and  documents,  1558  to  1625,  and  he  says  (p.  xxi) : 
*  In  the  history  of  the  constitution  no  hard  line  can  be 
drawn  between  the  reigns  of  the  last  Tudor  and  the  first 
Stewart.'  If  this  is  true  of  the  history  of  the  English 
constitution,  it  will  be  found  to  be  also  true  of  English 
foreign  policy,  of  the  history  of  English  commerce  and  of 
the  English  colonies,  of  the  history,  in  the  main,  of  English 
thought  and  of  the  English  conscience. 

James,  the  conditionally  disinherited  son  of  Mary 
Stewart,  was  the  heir,  successor,  and  disciple  of  Elisabeth 
Tudor.  He  continues  the  Tudor,  not  the  Stewart  policy.  So 
far  as  he  founds  a  Stewart  policy,  it  is  not  that  of  his  son, 
or  of  his  grandsoncrritig  that  of  his  great  grand-daughters. 
James  I,  Queen  Mary,  Qiieeh  Anne,  each  on  his  or  her  own 


THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY  57 

James's  own  reading  of  the  drama  of  his  own  life  and  times. 
Shakespeare  deals  besides,  as  we  know,  with  universal 
scenery,  with  an  Italy,  a  France,  a  Greece,  a  Venice,  a 
Vienna,  partly  of  the  past,  partly  of  the  present,  partly  of 
all  time.  He  is  himself  part  of  universal  literature  ;  but, 
above  all,  the  master,  the  incomparable  master,  of  our 
native  language  and  of  our  national  imagination.  Is  there 
any  of  our  poets  in  whom  the  policy,  the  history,  of  England 
is  more  incorporate,  to  whom  the  English  State  is  more 
present,  alive,  life-giving  ?  He  belongs  to  the  New  World, 
also,  which  was  being  discovered  in  his  day.  He  is  aware 
of  the  greatness  of  the  moment,  but,  further — and  it  is  this 
we  are  trying  to  emphasise — of  its  dangers,  its  difficulties, 
its  snares,  its  temptations.  There  is  a  caution  about  Shake- 
speare, as  there  is  about  Bacon,  Hooker,  and  the  Cecils. 
The  lesrders  in  literature,  in  science,  in  theology,  in  poli- 
tics, of  that  critical  and  culminating  age,  all  have  a  sense 
of  its  importance ;  but  they  have,  moreover,  a  very  strong 
sense  of  the  possibility  and  the  peril  of  a  false  step. 

It  is  scarcely  more  true  of  Elisabeth  than  of  James,  it 
is  true  equally  of  Elisabethan  and  Jacobean  statesmen, 
that,  at  every  step,  what  looks  like  uncertainty  of  vision 
and  action  is  coupled  with  exercise  of  most  intense  watch- 
f ulne^  and  calculation.  For  the  matter  of  that,  we  meet 
it  again  under  the  Protectorate.  However  daring  in  ideas,* 
who  i^ore  cautious  in  deeds  than  Cromwell  ?  That  a  great 
f  uture.was  bef orethenation  seemstohavefilled  the  imagina- 
tion of  people  and  of  princes,  the  imagination  of  Elisabeth 
and  James,  the  imagination  of  poets  and  philosophers,  of 
diplomatists  and  divines,  of  the  merchant,  the  soldier,  the 
mariner.  But  in  them  all  the  sentiment  was  mixed ;  there 
was  anticipation  and  there  was  apprehension.  The  impedi- 
ments in  the  way  of  England  were  great.  There  was  an 
absolute  want  of  allies.  There  was  an  absolute  want  of 
precedent.  There  was  consciousness  of  a  want  of  unani- 
mity, of  serious  divisions  at  home.  Something  like  what 
we  call  now-a-daysthe  Expansion  of  England  was  expected. 

*  We  regret  not  to  be  able  to  diflcuss  at  length  Sir  W.  Hunter*8  very 
characterlstio  chapter  on  Cromwell,  li,  101-42.  He  has  something  of  novelty 
to  produce ;  but,  in  order  to  exaggerate  the  disooverj,  how  much  has  to  be 
omitted  or  concealed  1  To  correct  Sir  W.  Hunter's  silence  vide  Gardiner, 
*  History  of  the  Ck>mmonwealth,'  11,  330-76,  particularly  350-2 ;  Ranke,  *  Engl. 
Gesch.'  (1861),  ill,  467-70 ;  Seeley,  *  Growth  of  British  Policy,  ii,  47-^. 


THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY  59 

The  East  India  Company  was  founded  on  the  last  day 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  we  may  consider  it  as  the 
last  great  act  of  the  Tudor  dynasty.  But  the  policy  on 
which  it  sets  the  seal  had  accompanied  the  whole  history 
of  the  Tudors;  it  is  seen  prominently  throughout  the 
second,  and  may  easily  be  traced  even  in  the  first,  half  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  As  trade  at  home  had  grown  up 
under  the  direction  of  the  Guilds,  and  then,  as  cities  and 
the  capital  became  more  and  more  important,  had  been 
regulated  by  the  great  Livery  Companies,  so  was  it  found 
necessary,  in  view  of  the  increase  of  foreign  trade,  to 
bring  it,  if  it  was  to  be  carried  on  with  any  degree  of 
safety  and  also  of  honesty,  under  the  management  of 
committees  of  able  and  leading  and  responsible  merchants, 
and  to  connect  these,  by  means  of  charters  and  the  con- 
trol which  charters  implied,  with  the  Government  and 
with  the  Sovereign. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  in  1505, 
under  the  first  Tudor,  Henry  VII,  the  *  Merchant  Adven- 
turers' obtained  their  full  and  formal  charter,  though  they 
themselves  dated  back  their  origin  and  activity,  as  an  off- 
shoot from  the  London  guild  of  'Mercers,'  to  the  thirteenth 
century.  To  meet  a  typical  *  Merchant  Adventurer '  and 
*  Mercer,'  with  whom  to  compare,  from  whom  to  derive  the 
typical  *  Cape  Merchant '  *  and  Chief  Agent  of  the  East 
India  Company  of  later  times,  let  us  glance  at  the  career 
of  Sir  Thomas  Gresham.  '  Statesman  as  well  as  merchant, 
half  ambassador,  half  hawker,'  a  sort  of  *  consul-general ' 
in  the  Low  Countries  and  at  Antwerp,  with  vagpuely  drawn 
and  sometimes  very  widely  interpreted  functions,  he  be- 
came '  Royal  Agent'  and  *  Queen's  Factor';  he  was  Intelli- 
gencer to  the  English  Government;  he  contracted  loans  in 
the  Netherlands  on  behalf  of  the  English  Crown;  he 
carried  on  a  large  private  trade.  Moreover,  in  his  interest 
or  in  his  pay  he  employed  a  considerable  number  of  con- 
fidential scriveners  and  correspondents,  engaged  indiffer- 
ently on  financial  experiments  and  diplomatic  missions. 
In  London  he  stood  foremost  among  the  city  knights, 
founded  Gresham  College,  planned  and  built  the  Royal 
Exchange.     A  detailed  study  of  his  life  would  show  us 


'     *  '  Head  merchant,  an  adaptation  of  some  foreign  title  in  cap  or  capo  * : 
vide  '  New  English  Dictionary.' 


THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY  61 

the  Dutch,  with  whom  we  were  at  peace.  The  defeat  of 
the  Invincible  Armada  in  1588  had  taught  our  royal  and 
our  mercantile  navies  what  they  might  dare ;  and  the 
Dutch,  manipulating  the  pepper  trade,  and  increasing  their 
Eastward  sailing  fleets,  had  touched  our  conunercial  pride. 

It  was  a  London  company  which  thus  launched  out  into 
the  deep ;  a  City  company ;  in  the  main,  a  Puritan  venture. 
It  had  its  heart  and  hearth  on  the  Thames ;  the  energy  of 
its  head  and  hands  was  chiefly  addressed  to  bringing  re- 
spectably and  honourably  earned  treasure  thither.  To  mark 
the  historical  traditions  it  followed  we  might  say  they 
were  those  of  a  Oresham ;  to  indicate  the  personal  note 
in  its  directorate  we  might  say  it  was  guided  by  a  Smith, 
by  an  Abbott,  by  the  counsels  of  a  Mun.  It  strove  to  be, 
and  to  keep,  in  touch  with  the  Queen,  and  then  with  the 
King,  and  with  their  ministers;  whenever  necessary — 
though  the  necessity  was  urged  and  acknowledged  as 
rarely  as  possible— its  affairs  were  discussed  as  affairs  of 
State ;  it  was  a  part  of  what,  with  reference  to  Burghley 
and  Salisbury  and  their  school,  we  have  seen  styled  the 
*  Begnum  Cecilianum ' ;  its  policy,  if  bold,  was  prudent ; 
it  was  very  ready,  on  the  least  occasion,  to  put  as  cautious, 
as  pacific,  as  modest  a  cloak  as  possible  on  its  proceedings. 
It  was,  at  first,  not  so  much  national  as  somewhat  specially 
and  stringently  metropolitan.  It  identified  itself  and  its 
interests  with  the  life  of  London.  Till  the  winding-up  of 
its  affairs  it  continued  the  great  controller  of  capital  and 
employer  of  labour  at  the  East  End.  It  was  not  till  after 
William  Ill's  reign — ^till  after  all  that  jealousy,  of  which 
we  spoke,  between  Amsterdam  and  London  had  died  down 
— ^that  *  the  Governor  and  Company  of  Merchants  of  London 
trading  into  the  East  Indies '  became,  even  in  description, 
•the  United  Company  of  Merchants  of  England  trading 
to  the  East  Indies.' 

It  was  no  •  weakling  child  * ;  its  waking  hours  were  full 
of  vigilance  and  vigour ;  it  had  its  dreams  and  it  had  its 
visions,  to  be  more  than  fulfilled.  Its  foundation  sums  up 
the  English  life  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Its  charter  is 
the  last  great  privilege  granted  by  Elisabeth,  by  the 
Tudors,  to  the  Companies — ^the  final  document  of  the 
century.  Her  reign,  her  dynasty,  are  all  but  over.  Her 
Charter  to  the  East  India  Company  marks  the  first  great 
stride  of  London  towards  becoming  the  capital  of  the  com- 


THEEAST    INDIA    COMPANY  68 

strance;*  then  painting  at  full  length  such  portraits 
as  those  of  Sir  Thomas  Smith,  Sir  Maurice  Abbott,  Sir 
Dudley  Carleton,  Sir  Dudley  Digges,  Mr  Thomas  Mun. 
He  would  show  how  the  political  pamphlet  of  the  later 
seventeenth  century  was  a  child  of  the  commercial  and 
economic  tract  of  the  first  decades  of  that  century,  and 
how  this  earlier  literature  centred  round  the  earliest  for- 
tunes of  the  East  India  Company ;  he  would  connect  the 
perseverance  of  the  Compaoiy  with  the  enthusiasm  which 
still  lives  in  the  pages  of  Hakluyt  and  Purchas.  After 
digressing  on  Persia,  on  Persian  trade,  on  Sir  Bobert 
Sherley  and  his  brothers  in  search  of  a  creed,  of  credit, 
and  of  a  court  which  should  appreciate  their  English  ac- 
commodation of  the  Sx)anish  Don  Quixote  type,  he  would 
note  how  the  history  of  the  Virginia  Company,  and  of  the 
colonies  in  America,  runs  side  by  side  with  the  history  of 
the  East  India  Company  and  its  factories  in  Asia.  He  would 
piece  out  the  fortunes  of  men  like  Lancaster  and  Middle- 
ton,  Bastell  and  Kerridge,  at  one  time  agents  of  the  Com- 
pany in  the  East,  and  at  another  prominent  on  its  councils 
at  home  as  committee-men  or  directors.  He  would  sketch 
the  naval  commanders,  the  next  generation  after  Drake, 
Cavendish,  and  Frobisher,  seamen  experienced  in  many 
waters,  in  the  Atlantic  as  well  as  the  Pacific — a  Best, 
a  Pring,  a  Newport,  a  Downton;  he  would  commemo- 
rate the  great  surveyors,  the  great  commercial  travellers 
and  settlers  for  the  Company,  their  journals,  and  their 
reports — an  Aldworthe,  a  Courthope,  a  Methwold,  a  Gib- 
son. Finally  we  would  have  our  chronicler  round  off  his 
record  and  legend  of  the  whole  century  with  many  a 
picturesque  touch  out  of  the  stories  of  what  we  might  call 
the  waifs  and  strays  of  the  movement,  from  the  *  Odcom- 
bian  leg-stretcher,*  Thomas  Coryat,  the  contemporary  of 
Sir  Thomas  Roe,  to  the  '  twenty  years'  captive '  in  Ceylon, 
Robert  Knox,t  the  contemporary  of  Sir  Josiah  Child. 

The  '  really  great  book '  that  *  might  be  written ' — to 
borrow  part  of  Sir  W.  Hunter's  suggestion — on  the  begin- 
nings of  the  East  India  Company  and  the  relation  of  those 


*  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  East  Indies,  1617-1621/  pp.  269,  70.  And  see 
Doyle,  'English  in  America,*  p.  217,  and  Peckard,  'Life  of  Ferrar,'  pp.  106,  7. 

t  The  long-missing  additional  notes,  written  In  later  life  by  Knox  on  his 
adventures  and  experiexiccs,  have  recently  been  discoyered  in  the  Bodleian, 
fol.  A  623, 


THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY  66 

As  Roe  is  the  typical  Anglo-Indian  statesman  of  the 
first  generation,  so  is  Surat  the  typical  factory,  cradle  of 
Anglo-Indian  character,  and  nursery  of  Anglo-Indian  com- 
merce. Bantam  looked  forth  towards  altogether  new  de- 
partures and  destinies ;  it  might  have  caught  up,  almost 
prematurely,  might  have  led  astray,  the  spirit  of  English 
adventure  among  strange  islands  and  into  unknown  seas. 
Surat  lay  on  an  ancient  trade  route  between  the  Red  Sea, 
the  Persian  Gulf,  and  the  Gulf  of  Cambay.  It  could  pick 
up,  it  could  link  into  a  new  chain,  an  older  mechanism. 
Surat  and  Jedda  were  the  two  ports  of  embarkation  along 
a  line  of  continual  movement ;  Mecca  was  at  one  end,  the 
goal  of  merchants  and  pilgrims,  Ag^a  at  the  other.  The 
tone  of  the  Surat  settlement  was  Protestant  and  Puritan, 
corresponding  to  that  of  the  party  with  which  Leicester 
had  been  in  sympathy,  and  then  Essex,  and  to  which 
Archbishop  Abbott  belonged ;  it  partook  of  the  grave  and 
serious  seventeenth-century  vein — Jacobean,  Caroline, 
Cromwellian ;  it  is  in  kinship  with  this  grave  and  serious 
country  gentleman  and  London  city  magnate  who  directs 
affairs  at  Surat.  Men  like  Sir  George  Oxinden  and  Mr 
Gerald  Aungier  are  worthy  contemporaries  of  Mr  John 
Milton.  John  Milton  was  bom  in  1608 ;  and  that  is  the 
very  year  in  which  Captain  Hawkins,  with  the  Hector, 
being  the  first  vessel  of  any  English  company  to  anchor 
in  any  port  of  the  continent  of  India,  arrived  at  Surat. 
Milton  couples  immediately  the  trade  of  the  Persian  Gulf 
with  that  of  the  coasts  above  and  below  the  estuaries  of 
the  Indus — 

*  the  wealth  of  Ormuz,  and  of  Ind,' 

and  this  marks  exactly  the  outlook  of  his  age  and  that 
taken  by  the  English  factors  at  Surat.  Thoughts  reflecting 
abroad  those  which  inspired  Milton  at  home — ^f  or  on  the 
serenity  and  tolerance  of  Shakespeare  had  followed  the 
scrupulosity  and  severity  of  Milton — of  the  duties  rather 
than  the  delights,  of  the  temptations  incident  to  an '  earthly 
paradise,'  may  well  have  dominated  this  earliest  Anglo- 
Indian  society,  *the  President,  and  Council,  and  family' 
at  Surat.  Its  life  was  that  of  an  extended  domestic,  circle* 
of  a  concentrated  guild,  with  its  divisions  or  grsudsktismBij 
of  senior  and  junior  merchants,  factors,  writers,  and  ap-'- 
prentices.  It^  di^pipline  reminds  one  of  that  of  a  college, 
VoL  198.— No.  385.  F 


THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY  60 

gaon  or  Masulipatam  or  Madras  was  best  suited  to  be  a 
place  of  arms  and  of  stores  from  whence  to  control  and 
command  the  traffic  on  the  Eastern  shores  of  the  Indian 
peninsula.  As  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  century  among  the 
Spice  Islands,  so  during  the  second  quarter  of  the  century 
on  *the  Coast' — ^from  Cape  Comorin  up  towards  the  Ganges 
delta — the  English  factors,  now  advancing,  now  receding, 
had  spied  out  the  land,  studied  the  temper  of  the  inhabi- 
tants, sought  a  permanent  and  defensible  foothold.  Path- 
finder-in-chief,  and  then  successful  city-planter — ^little  else 
is  known  of  him — ^was  a  Mr  Francis  Day.  He  helped 
to  found  the  factory  at  Armagaon  in  1625,  he  founded 
Madras,  or  Fort  St  Cfeorge,  in  1639,  he  revived  the  factory 
at  Balasor  in  1642. 

To  sum  up  the  years,  indeed  the  century,  which  ensued  : 
through  the  whole  period  of  the  Long  Parliament,  of  the 
Great  Rebellion,  of  the  Civil  War,  of  the  Restoration,  of 
the  Revolution,  of  the  settlement  of  the  succession,  the 
government  of  the  Ectst  India  Company  could  not  but 
shift  a  good  deal  away  from  exact  dependence  on,  or  clear 
subservience  to,  LeadenhaU  Street.  Much  had  to  be  left, 
much  was  left,  to  the  discretion  of  the  agents  abroad,  at 
Surat,  Bantam,  ajid  Masulipatam,  and  then,  as  later  stations 
grew  into  importance,  at  Fort  St  George,  or  Bombay,  or 
KAsnmhiz&r,  The  Company  needed  all  their  craft  to  be  able 
to  transfer  authority  and  to  disclaim  responsibility,  were 
they  to  weather  the  times  of  Cromwell,  of  Charles  II,  of 
James  II,  of  William  III,  of  Anne,  of  the  first  two  Georges. 
The  seasons  changed,  as  it  were,  and  the  dangers,  with 
each  new  ruler ;  but  the  dangers  never  diminished,  and, 
though  the  storm-cloud  veered  from  one  point  on  the 
horizon  to  another,  it  never  dispersed.  In  1653,  Fort  St 
George  became  the  seat  of  a  Presidency.  Mr  Francis  Day 
had  handed  on  his  gift  for  scrutiny  and  acquisition.  We 
find  the  Presidency  examining — at  the  moment  negativing 
— ^the  practicability  of  an  overland  India  trade  right  across 
country  between  Madras,  Gk)a,  and  Surat.  Always  we  have 
the  outposts  maintained,  the  approaches  multiplied,  in  the 
direction  of  Bengal,  of  the  delta  and  valley  of  the  Ganges. 

With  the  restoration  of  the  Stewarts  and  the  return, 
in  1660,  of  Charles  II  to  Whitehall,  there  set  in,  along 
with  the  magnificence  of  a  court  modelled  on  that  of  Louis 
Quatorze,  a  steady  revival  of  trade,  a  growing  demand  for 


70  THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY 

luxuries  and  curiosities,  not  least  for  the  gems,  the  gauzes, 
and  the  spices  of  the  East.  Charies  II  and  his  brother 
took  a  keen  interest  in  mercantile  affairs.  Their  policy 
was  propped  on  the  secret  alliance  with  France;  they 
hoped  to  win  personal  popularity  by  offering  every  en- 
couragement to  the  spread  of  distant  colonies  and  con- 
quests ;  it  was  their  cue  to  proclaim  against  all  comers 
and  to  assert  at  every  opportunity  their  sovereignty  of 
the  seas.  They  desired  to  put  an  end  to  the  poller 
and  the  pretensions  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  its  theory  of 
the  state,  and  its  organisation  of  commerce.  Cromwell 
had  been  a  kind  of  ^  Stadtholder '  in  Britain,  a  Protector  of 
the  genius  of  a  nation  much  after  the  Dutch  jxtttem,  a 
William  the  Silent  on  the  most  impressive  and  extensive 
scale.  As  we  know,  it  was  to  be  the  fate  of  the  whole 
system  of  the  Stewarts  to  be  ultimately  recast  by 
another  '  Stadtholder,*  the  third  WiUiam  as  stadtholder  of 
Holland,  the  third  William  as  king  of  England.  Mean- 
while, though  there  was  a  marriage  in  Charles  II's  reign 
of  his  niece  the  Duke  of  York's  elder  daughter  with  this 
very  Prince  of  Orange — as  there  had  been  in  Charles  I's 
reign  of  the  then  Princess  Mary  with  the  then  Prince 
William  of  Orange — ^the  two  Stewart  brothers  were  in 
sentiment  and  sympathy  absolutely  and  entirely  anti- 
Dutch  ;  andy  with  regard  to  business,  if  not  with  regard 
to  politics  and  religion,  they  had  the  merchants  of  London 
with  them.  The  final  issues  we  have  already  hinted  at. 
The  principles  of  freedom,  which  after  all  were  identical 
in  Holland  and  in  England,  prevailed  at  Westminster,  were 
recombined,  assimilated  afresh,  were  finally  Englished 
and  nationalised.  There  was  a  kind  of  momentary  per- 
sonal triumph  of  the  Dutch,  of  the  spirit  of  de  Buyter, 
of  the  policy  of  the  House  of  Orange.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  ordering  and  regulating  of  the  commerce  of 
the  world  passed  from  the  United  Provinces  and  from 
Amsterdam  to  the  British  Isles  and  to  the  City  of  London. 
But  we  are  hastening  on  too  quickly  to  the  close  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  Let  us  pause  on  some  such 
date  as  the  year  1674.  The  third  quarter  of  the  century 
has  all  but  expired.  It  is  the  year  of  the  peace  between 
England  and  the  States-General.  It  divides  fairly  well 
the  reign  of  Charles  II  into  two  parts.  Down  to  1874  the 
history  of  foreign  complications  is  what  most  interests 


THE    EAST    INDIA    COMPANY  71 

the  student  of  the  reign ;  from  1674  onwards  the  history 
of  the  reign  is  that  of  plot  and  counterplot  at  home, 
with  regard  to  the  succession,  and  with  regard  to  the 
controversies  of  the  creeds.  In  1674,  moreover,  Pondi- 
cherry  was  founded,  and  French  rivalry,  came  definitely 
into  view  on  '  the  Coast'-;  as,  a  couple  of  years  later^the 
founding  of  the  French  settlement  of  Chandamagar  dis* 
closed  it  on  the  Hugli  and  in  'the  Bay.'  It  is  in  the 
year  1674  that  Josiaii  Child  first  becomes  a  director  of 
the  East  India  Company.  It  is  the  year  in  which 
Thomas  Pitt  is  first  mentioned  as  an  interloper.  Child, 
afterwards  Sir  Josiah  Child,  baronet,  inspired  the  coun- 
cils of  the  Company  at  home  till  the  end  of  the 
century.  He  died  in  1699.  At  the  end  of  the  century 
Thomas  Pitt  was  governor  at  Fort  St  George.  He  was 
still  governor  when  his  grandson  William  Pitt — the  first 
Elarl  of  Chatham — ^was  bom.  The '  tales  of  a  grandfather ' 
which  the  Grreat  Commoner  might  remember  would  bo 
tales  of  adventurous  voyages  in  the  Persian  Gulf  and  in 
the  Bay  of  Bengal,  of  the  '  Pitt '  diamond,  of  the  siege  of 
Madrcis  by  Daoud  Khan,  of  the  campaigns  of  Aurangzeb. 
The  career  of  Clive — which  again  and  again  commenced 
and  reconunenced  from  Fort  St  Greorge— must  have  had  a 
quite  peculiar  interest  for  William  Pitt.  The  year  1674 
marks,  further,  a  very  large  increase  in  the  shipping  and 
stock  sent  out  from  England  as  the  nucleus  of  the  com- 
merce with  Asia.  The  merchants  and  factors  abrocul  were 
made  aware  that  capital  and  intelligence  at  home  were 
engaged  as  never  before  in  the  affairs  of  India.  We  note 
the  question  arising  in  1676  as  to  whether  the  trade  with 
Persia  could  be  most  effectively  re-established  by  the  em- 
ployment of  force  or  by  treaty.  In  1676  the  Surat  Presi- 
dency was  still  in  favour  of  pacific  measures.  But  nine 
years  later,  when  a  similar  question  arose  with  regard  to 
outlying  provinces  of  the  Mogul's  dominion,  the  Bay  of 
Cambay  and  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  the  verdict  was  for  open 
war.  That  is  the  year  1685,  in  which  James  II  came  to 
the  throne,  in  which  Sir  John  Child,  Sir  Josiah's  brother, 
was  made  a  baronet,  and  was  in  authority  at  Surat,  or 
rather  at  Bombay — for  that  is  the  moment,  too,  when 
Bombay,  instead  of  Surat,  became  the  seat  of  the  Western 
Presidency,  to  be  for  a  while  indeed  factory  and  fortress- 
in-chief  of  the  whole  English  adventure  in  India. 


(     75    ) 

Art.  IV.— THE  VICTORIAN  STAGE. 

1.  The  Drama   of   Yesterday  and    To-day.    By  Clement 
Scott. .  Two  vols.     London  :  Macmillan,  1899. 

2.  Dramatic  Criticism,.    By  J.  T.  Grreiri.    London :  John 
Long,  1899. 

3.  Nights    at    the    Play.    By    Button    Cook.    Two  vols. 
London :  Chatto  and  Windus,  1883. 

4.  Som^  Notable  Hamlets  of  the  Present  Time.    By  Clement 
Scott.     London :  Greening,  1900. 

5.  Helena  Faucit  {Lady  Martin).    By  Sir  Theodore  Martin. 
Edinburgh  and  London :  Blackwood,  1900. 

A  BETBOSPBCT  of  the  English  drama  from  the  accession  of 
Queen  Victoria  to  the  present  time,  aiming  at  a  complete 
record  of  the  various  changes  in  taste  and  manners  which 
society  has  undergone  during  so  long  an  interval,  and 
gauging  the  fidelity  with  which  they  have  been  reflected 
on  the  stage,  would,  it  is  needless  to  say,  require  a  volume 
to  itself,  and  one  very  different  from  any  of  those  which 
stand  at  the  head  of  this  article.  Even  a  much  less  am- 
bitious attempt,  confined  to  a  criticism  of  all  the  best- 
known  plays  and  most  popular  actors  of  the  Victorian  era, 
would  be  entirely  beyond  the  scope  of  a  Quarterly  Review 
article.  All  that  we  propose  on  the  present  occasion  is  to 
note  some  of  the  salient  points  which  the  retrospect  pre- 
sents, some  of  the  leading  contrasts  which  it  affords 
between  the  middle  and  the  close  of  the  Victorian  era,  and 
some  of  the  comparisons  which  it  suggests  between  the 
comedy  of  the  nineteenth  and  the  comedy  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

The  Victorian  period  of  the  drama  divides  itself  into 
two  parts,  which,  though  they  run  into  each  other,  have 
sufficiently  distinct  characteristics.  Sixty  years  ago  we 
find  the  'legitimate  drama'  struggling  to  hold  its  own 
against  opera,  burlesque,  and  melodrama.  Some  good 
pieces  were  produced,  but  they  did  not  represent  the  real 
life  of  the  period^  or  '  take '  with  society  as  the  new  drama 
has  taken.  *  London  Assurance '  is  a  conspicuous  example 
of  this  defect,  and  betrays  a  total  absence  of  that  social 
knowledge  which  the  author,  when  it  was  written,  had 
enjoyed  few  opportunities  of  acquiring.  The  talk  of  the 
servants  is  even  more  absurd  than  it  is  in  Sheridan's  plays. 


THE    VICTORIAN   STAGE  77 

Gibber,  and  others  of  that  era,  we  shaU  see  at  once  they 
are  meant  for  pictures  of  real  life,  and  a>s  long  €is  they 
continued  to  be  so  society  went  to  look  at  itself  through 
the  dramatic  mirror.  If  we  can  trust  the  novels  of  that 
day,  if  we  can  trust  the  modem  imitations  of  them,  such 
as  *  Esmond '  and  the  '  Virginians,'  if  we  can  trust  the  evi- 
dence of  the  Essayists,  from  Steele  and  Addison  down  to 
Mackenzde  and  Cumberland,  the  stage  in  their  day  really 
was  a  reflection  of  living  manners,  of  what  one  might 
see  or  hear  in  the  '  gilded  saloons,'  in  the  clubs,  and  in 
all  places  of  public  amusement  frequented  by  the  best 
society.  It  was  easy,  says  Mackenzie  in  ^The  Lounger' 
(1786),  for  a  clever  actor  so  to  play  the  hero  of  a  comedy 
as  to  make  young  people  confound  the  copy  with  the 
original,  and  suppose  that  a  real  gentleman  was  the  same 
kind  of  man  as  the  fictitious  one  :  and  therefore  the  im- 
moral hero  had  a  bad  effect.  But  he  could  not  do  this 
equally  with  the  hero  of  tragedy.  It  is  clear,  therefore, 
that  the  eighteenth-century  comedies  were  meant  to  re- 
produce upon  the  stage  the  life  of  the  boudoir  and  the 
ball-room,  and  that  they  did  to  a  great  extent  succeed. 
As  it  became  more  difficult  to  do  this,  as  there  were  fewer 
salient  points  on  which  the  actor  could  depend,  as  the  gap 
between  life  on  the  stage  and  life  off  it  became  wider  and 
more  apparent,  English  comedy  began  to  decline,  with  the 
result  which  we  have  already  noticed. 

Webster's  offer  of  five  hundred  pounds  in  1843  for  the 
best  comedy  of  '  high  life '  shows  that  he  felt,  at  least,  the 
want  of  something  different  from  'London  Assurance,* 
which  came  out  in  1841.  The  prize  was  awarded  to  Mrs 
Gore,  for  a  comedy  entitled  '  Quid  pro  Quo,'  which  was 
acted  at  the  Haymarket  in  1844.  Mrs  Nisbet,  Mrs  Glover, 
and  Buckstone  were  all  in  the  cast,  and  they  all  did  their 
best.  But '  Quid  pro  Quo '  was  not  likely  to  succeed  where 
'  London  Assurance '  failed.  The  champion  destined  to 
awaken  the  sleeping  beauty  was  not  yet  found.  Some- 
thing very  much  better  was  required  to  bring  back  the 
world  of  fashion  to  the  stalls  and  boxes.  On  this  point 
we  have  the  testimony  of  Mrs  Gore  herself.  In  her  pre- 
face to  *  Quid  pro  Quo '  she  says  : — 

'  Were  the  boxes  often  filled,  as  I  had  the  gratification  of 
seeing  them  for  the  first  representation  of  *'  Quid  pro  Quo,'* 
with  those  aristocratic  and  literary  classes  of  the  n/^nnmtiTiitv 


THE    VICTORIAN    STAGE  79 

interval  we  have  returned  to  the  methods  of  what  many 
critics  still  consider  the  most  brilliant  days  of  British 
comedy ;  and  a  very  important  question  which  we  have 
to  ask  is  whether  our  dramatic  authors  are  succeeding  in 
the  task  which  they  have  set  themselves.    We  may  ask 
this  question  with  regard  to  both  authors  and  performers; 
and — to  take  the  latter  first — if  it  is  no  longer  so  easy  to 
counterfeit  the  character  of  a  lady  or  gentleman  on  the 
stage  as  it  was  when  costume  was  more  marked  and 
manners  more  formal  than  they  are  now,  nevertheless  it 
may  be  granted  at  once  that  such  parts  are  usually  very 
well  filled  at  our  best  theatres.     This  appears  to  be, 
partly  at  least,  owing  to  a  cause  with  which  some  leading 
theatrical  critics  cannot  be  suflBiciently  angry.    Mr  Clement 
Scott,  for  instance,  complains  that  the  old-fashioned  hard- 
working conscientious  actor,  full  of  stage  traditions,*  de- 
voted to  his  profession,  and   caring  nothing  for  social 
recognition,  is  thrust  to  the  waU  by  sprigs  of  aristocracy 
and  *'  society  schoolgirls '  who  neither  possess  any  natural 
aptitude  for  the  stage  nor  take  the  trouble  to  acquire  it. 
BeaUy  finished  acting  is  therefore,  we  are  told,  in  danger 
of  extinction.    But  is  such  the  impression  left  upon  one's 
mind  after  witnessing  such  plays  as  '  The  Liars,'  or  '  The 
Squire  of  Dames,'  or  *  The  Passport,'  or  *  Liberty  Hall,'  or 
'  The  Fool's  Paradise,'  or  •  Lady  Ursula '  ?    As  to  the  truth 
of  these  dramas  we  shall  have  a  word  to  say  presently. 
But  purely  the  acting,  if  in  some  cases  it  lacked  power, 
seldom  or  never  lacked  finish.     The  fact  that  so  many 
ladies  and  gentlemen  have  found  room  for  themselves 
upon  the  stage  is  due,  among  other  causes,  to  the  change 
in  manners  which  we  have  already  mentioned.     It  shows 
that  they  were  wanted.     The  supply  has  followed  the 
demand ;   and  in  the  plays  that  we  have  ourselves  wit- 
nessed we  see  no  signs  of  that  crudeness  and  carelessness 
which    Mr  Scott    denounces  when  he  enlarges  on  the 
superiority  of  the  old  school  of  actors  and  the  laborious 
study  which  produced  it. 

It  is  moreover  to  be  remembered  that  what  is  com* 
plained  of  as  injurious  to  the  English  stage  has  also  its 
good  side.    The  change  in  question  has  tended  to  raise 

— — —  —  _  _-, . — . -  —  .      - — .. ^^^^ — __ —  _  _ .  .. — . — . _ — . — . ^ ^ — ^ — _^__^_ — ^       ^ 

♦  Sir  Theodore  thinks  that  Helena  Fancit's  early  success  was  partly  due  to 
her  ignoiuiice  of  st^ge  traditions. 


THE    VICTORIAN    STAGE  88 

anything  resembling  passion,  that  no  harm  is  done. 
There  is  no  suggestiveness,  no  implied  recognition  of  vice 
as  a  matter  of  course.     The  whole  thing  is  a  caricature. 

It  is  very  different  with  some  modem  plays,  the  chief 
interest  of  which  is  made  to  consist  in  bringing  the  two 
worlds,  the  monde  and  the  demi-monde^  into  as  close  juxta- 
position as  possible,  and  even  in  blurring  the  lines  by 
w^hich  they  are  separated  from  each  other.     We  are  told 
that  the  popularity  of  such  plays  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
they  do  really  represent  a  corresponding  deterioration  in 
the  tone  of  English  society  and  the  moral  standards  which 
govern  it ;  and  that  in  this  one  respect,  at  all  events,  they 
reproduce  the  very  form  and  fashion  of  the  time.  *  In  two 
books  which  have  lately  been  published  by  authors  of 
repute,  to  whom  the  door^  of  society  are  open,  we  find 
this  deterioration  deplored  as  an  acknowledged  fact.    The 
Warden  of  Merton,  who  may  be  supposed  to  write  with 
knowledge,  says  in  his  *  Reminiscences '  that  there  is,  he 
fears,  an  inner  circle  of  the  fashionable  .world  in  which 
much  is  habitually  said  and  done  which  in  the  earlier 
Victorian  era  was  a  comparatively  rare  exception,  even 
in  the  gayest  society ;  and  Mr  Lilly,  in  his  recently  pub- 
lished volume,  '  First  Principles  in  Politics,'  tells  us  still 
more  confidently  that  '  one  of  the  notes  of  the  age  is  a 
pronounced  laxity  of  practice — and,  what  is  worse,  of 
theory — about  sexual  matters.'    What  weight  is  to  be 
attached  to  the  gossip  of  club  smoking-rooms  is,  of  course, 
a  matter  of  opinion.     But  the  fact  remains  that  ^  society ' 
lends  a  favourable  ear  to  such  plays  as   '  The  Second 
Mrs  Tanqueray,'  *  The  Gay  Lord  Quex,'  and  *  The  Profli- 
gate ' ;  and  that,  if  some  ladies  of  fashion  hesitate  to  let 
their  daughters  see  them,  many  do  not.     Now  if  what 
Mr  Brodrick  and  Mr  LiUy  assert  is  really  true,  we  must 
not  suppose  that  it  is  the  licence  of  the  stage  that  has  led 
to  the  corruption  of  manners,  but  rather  the  corruption 
of  manners  which  has  encouraged  the  licence  of  the  stage. 
If  there  is  any  truth  in  the  above  remarks,  it  would 
8cem  that  the  palmy  days  of  pure  comedy  must  be  looked 
for  in  the  past ;  and  the  gradual  encroachment  of  the 
novel. on  the  province  of  the  drama  points  the  same  way. 
The  .fact  is,  every  kind  oi  comedy,,  be  it  of  intrigue,  or 
cliar^^ter,  must  of  necessity  be  more  or  less  the  comedy  of 
majme^  dependeni;,  t^at  is,  on  the  .asgects  eugig^^s  conr. 
*""  ""  "     """  "'       "oi 


THE    VICTORIAN    STAGE  85 

so  as  Charles  Torrens  in  '  London  Assurance.*  The  '  man 
about  town/  living  in  chambers  in  the  Temple,  writing  a 
smart  magazine  article  when  he  is  in  the  humour,  for 
\irhich  he  is  "paid  enormous  sums,  constantly  receiving 
letters  from  the  editor  of  the '  Times '  begging  for  a  leader 
on  the  question  of  the  day,  deeply  in  debt — this  is  an 
essential  feature  of  the  character — ^member  of  a  fashion- 
able club,  with  the  erdr^  to  all  the  green-rooms  in  London 
— ^this  is  the  ideal  hero  of  many  a  young  man  on  first 
leaving  college,  though  it  is  needless  to  say  that  he  exists 
only  in  the  imagination  of  such  as  have  no  other  sources 
of  mf  ormation.  These  aspirations  have  been  the  ruin  of 
many  a  clever  fellow  who  but  for  this  silly  vanity  might 
have  been  a  resi>ectable  member  of  society,  and  died  a 
county-court  judge.  We  need  not  detain  the  reader  any 
longer  over  what  are  known  as  *  the  Caste  plays.*  Aided 
by  some  of  the  most  skilful  and  gentlemanly  actors  and 
one  of  the  most  bewitching  actresses  of  our  time,  they  un- 
doubtedly hit  the  public  taste,  and  'caught  on.'  Their 
realism  we  suppose  was  their  novelty ;  they  showed  the 
public  on  the  stage  what  they  could  see  at  home,  and  to 
api>etite8  jaded  with  the  traditional  heroes  and  heroines, 
the  plots  and  contrivances  of  the  earUer  and  mid-century 
comedy,  they  came  as  a  refreshing  change. 

We  now  turn  to  Mr  Pinero.  The  worshippers  of 
Robertson  say  that  had  there  been  no  Bobertson  there 
would  have  been  no  Pinero.  But  Bobertson  and  Ibsen 
have  both  gone  to  the  formation  of  Mr  Pinero  as  we  now 
know  him.  If  Bobertson  discarded  one  stage  convention, 
Ibsen,  we  are  assured,  discarded  another.  If  Bobertson 
made  the  drama  more  natural  and  simple,  Ibsen,  we  are 
told,  made  it  still  more  real  by  a  larger  admixture  of  vice 
.  and  misery.  He  banished  from  his  stage  '  the  trickery  of 
happy  endings,'  which  long  tradition  had  raised  to  the 
rank  of  a  principle.  At  this  i)oint,  then,  we  are  con- 
fronted by  two  questions :  what  is  the  end  of  comedy ; 
and,  secondly,  if  we  determine  that  our  play  shall  not  end 
happily,  by  what  necessary  process  is  our  end  to  be  at- 
tained ?  Those  who  object  so  strongly  to  the  conventional 
happy  ending  seem  sometimes  to  forget  that  comedy  is 
concerned  only  with  one  asx>ect  of  himtian  life  ;  that  it  is  *• 
species  of  satire  directed  not  against  crime  but  folly ;  ard 
that  to  introduce  into  it  the  machinery  which  we  associate 


THE    VICTORIAN    STAGE  89 

They  should  have  indulged  in  one  last  embrace  and  then 
torn  themselves  asunder.  The  knowledge  that  they  were 
destined  to  pine  away  in  secret  for  years  to  come  could 
not  have  failed  to  be  highly  gratifying  to  all  those  cheer- 
ful playgoers  who  agree  with  Mrs  Gamp  that  life  is  a 

*  wale.* 

It  is  not  easy  to  see  why  a  bad  ending  is  more  like 
real  life  than  a  good  one.  People  do  get  into  scrapes  and 
get  out  of  them  again  every  day ;  they  even  make  love  to 
other  men's  wives  without  anybody  being  consigned  to 
hopeless  wretchedness.  We  do  not  suppose  that  Mr  Sullen 
broke  his  heart  when  his  wife  went  off  with  Aimwell. 
The  novelist  or  dramatist  who  first  hangs  his  characters 

*  up  a  tree '  and  then  cuts  them  down  before  they  are  quite 
gone  is  guilty  in  the  eyes  of  Ibsen  and  his  school  of  a 
vulgar  weakness.  It  may  be  so  ;  but  it  seems  to  us  that 
the  universal  craving  for  'happy  endings'  is  something 
like  a  proof  that  they  cannot  be  so  unreal  as  the  new 
school  represent  them  to  be.  There  are  of  course  bad 
endings  to  equivocal  complications  in  real  life,  but  it  is 
not  the  part  of  pure  comedy  to  deal  with  these ;  and  if  we 
take  the  mixed  drama  in  which  tragedy  and  comedy  are 
combined,  it  will  not  seldom  be  found  that  both  have  been 
spoiled.    There  is  not  room  for  both  even  in  a  five-act  play. 

The  Victorian  drama  has  not  been  rich  in  tragedy,  and 
what  we  have  to  say  on  this  subject  had  better  be  deferred 
till  we  come  to  our  actors  and  actresses ;  but  it  shines 
greatly  in  farce,  burlesque,  and  melodrama.  To  attempt 
to  pick  and  choose  out  of  the  legion  of  plays  over  which 
three  generations  have  split  their  sides  would  be  a  hope- 
less task.  They  aU  have  this  in  common,  that  they  depend 
even  more  than  modem  comedy  does  on  particular  indi- 
viduals. '  Box  and  Cox '  was  nothing  without  Buckstone. 
'  Parents  and  Guardians '  was  nothing  without  the  Keeleys. 
The  Adelphi  farce  was  nothing  without  Wright  and  Paul 
Bedford.  These  were  actors  whose  entrance  on  the  stage, 
before  they  had  spoken  a  word,  was  the  signal  for  a 
general  titter ;  their  faces  were  simply  irresistible ;  and  it 
was  only  necessary  for  them  to  open  their  lips  for  that 
titter  to  become  a  roar.  It  did  not  matter  what  they  said, 
and  they  indulged  freely  in  gag.  We  doubt  if  there  is 
anything  on  the  stage  now,  unless  it  is  '  Charley's  Aunt,' 
quite  equal  to  the  farces  which  filled  the  London  theatres 


THE    VICTORIAN    STAGE  98 

last  fifty  years ;  and  we  hardly  know  whether  to  give  the 
second  to  Fechter  or  to  Lady  Martin.  In  the  banquet  scene 
in  *  Macbeth '  she  rose  to  the  summit  of  her  noble  art. 

We  shall  wound  no  susceptibilities,  we  hope,  if  we  add 
that  Miss  Ellen  Terry  is  better  fitted  for  Beatrice,  Rosalind 
(which,  however,  she  has  never  played),  or  Juliet  than  for 
Ophelia  or  Desdemona.  Her  personal  charms,  her  animal 
spirits,  her  girlish  gaiety,  maintained  to  the  last,  and  her 
clever  assumption  of  characters  which  really  suit  her,  have 
made  her  decidedly  the  reigning  favourite  of  the  last  thirty 
years  ;  and  she  is  probably,  take  her  all  round,  the  most 
popular  actress  of  the  Victorian  age.  We  cannot  honestly 
say  she  is  the  best,  but  she  and  Sir  Henry  Irving  will  always 
be  remembered,  with  Phelps  and  Mrs  Warner,  and  with 
Charles  Kean  and  Mrs  Kean,  as  the  leading  dramatic  re- 
vivalists of  the  last  half -century.  Their  efforts  have  been 
attended  with  varying  degrees  of  success;  but  there  is  no 
doubt  that  they havecontributed  greatly  to  thatrestoration 
of  the  stage  to  the  favour  of  the  higher  classes  in  which  the 
Kendals,  the  Bancrofts,  the  Hares,  Wyndhams,  and 
Alexanders,  with  such  actresses  as  Mary  Moore,  Marion 
Terry,  Gtertrude  Kingston,  Winifred  Emery,  Mrs  Patrick 
Campbell,  Miss  Millard,  and  Miss  Olga  Nethersole  have 
also  had  a  large  share.  Charles  Kean's  Shakespearean 
revivals  at  the  Princess's  were  chiefly  remarkable  for  their 
scenic  effects.  Kean  himself  was  a  gentlemanly  actor  in 
the  higher  comedy,  but  his  wife  was  the  favourite.  Her 
Viola  in  *  Twelfth  Night '  was  a  treat  not  to  be  forgotten. 

Among  recent  attempts  to  revive  the  Shakespearean 
drama,  that  of  Mr  F.  B.  Benson  deserves  notice,  not  so 
much  for  any  unusual  merit  in  the  acting,  as  for  a  certain 
originality  in  methods  and  aims.  Many  actors  have 
brought  out  isolated  plays  of  Shakespeare  with  more  or 
less  success :  Mr  Benson  has  made  it  his  business  to  pro- 
duce him  continually.  Most  managers  who  have  sought 
to  popularise  the  gpreat  dramatist  have  relied  chiefly  on 
splendid  scenic  effects,  and  an  almost  pedantic  accuracy  in 
costume  and  decorative  details :  Mr  Benson's  object  is  to 
show,  in  the  words  of  one  of  his  critics, '  that  Shakespeare 
can  be  played  for  Shakespeare's  sake.'  When  a  piece  is 
placed  on  ^e  stage  in  such  a  way  as  to  distract  attention 
from  the  picture  to  the  frame,  no  honour  is  done  either 
iki  kaihoT  or  axsbov.    Mr  B<tn£to&'6  preeentations  aito  a,  pit}* 


VIRGIL    AND    TENNYSON  101 

tion.  Varius,  himseK  an  exceUent  and  admired  poet,  also 
MTTot^e  his  friend's  *  Life.'  He  wrote  with  full  knowledge 
of  the  persons  and  the  facts  while  most  of  the  persons  were 
still  living  and  the  facts  were  stiU  fresh.  His  memoir 
contained,  we  have  reason  to  believe,  a  full  and  sufficient 
account  of  the  poet,  of  his  life  and  work,  his  education 
and  friendships,  his  habits  of  composition,  personal  traits, 
anecdotes,  table-talk,  good  stories,  perhaps  scandals,  obiter 
dtctay  and  the  like,  together  with  illustrative  extracts 
from  the  poet's  poems,  whether  published  or  unpublished, 
and  from  his  correspondence,  both  his  own  letters  and 
those  of  friends.  When  it  was  written,  many  of  the 
documents  on  which  it  was  based,  such  as  the  letters  of 
the  Emperor,  like  those  of  the  Queen  to  Tennyson,  were 
in  evidence,  and  remained  so  long  after.  It  would  have 
been  impossible  to  make  any  serious  misstatement  which 
many  living  friends  could  correct,  or  which  could  be  con- 
tradicted by  reference  to  documents  undoubtedly  authentic, 
or  to  interpolate  any  poem  or  portion  of  a  poem  as  Virgil's 
without  authority. 

On  this  *  Life '  by  Varius,  and  on  the  authorised  edition 
or  editions  of  his  poems,  it  is  pretty  clear  that  the  later 
authorities  rested,  as  long  as  any  serious  and  strong  critical 
spirit  remained.  The  best  that  we  now  have  is  a  fairly 
long  sketch,  probably  by  Suetonius,  much  in  the  nature 
of  a  *  Dictionary  of  Biography '  article.  This  no  doubt  is 
a  reduction  from  the  *  Life  *  by  Varius,  but  has  been  again 
added  to  and  embroidered  from  other  less  excellent  sources. 
In  Virgil's  case,  as  in  most  others,  there  were  current,  im- 
mediately after  his  death,  and  perhaps  even  during  his 
lifetime,  conflicting  texts  and  semi-authenticated  stories, 
and  some  of  these  doubtless  established  themselves  in  lieu 
of,  or  side  by  side  with,  the  genuine  ;  but  without  entering 
into  the  minutisB  of  discrimination,  it  may  be  said  that  we 
possess  a  considerable  body  of  information  about  Virgil, 
and  that  when  due  aUowance  has  been  made  for  such  ac- 
cretions, a  great  deal  remains,  well  attested  or  carrying 
its  own  claim  to  credence.  We  know  more,  probably, 
about  the  life  of  Virgil  than  we  do  about  the  life  of 
Shakespeare.  To  state  this  may  not  indeed  be  to  state 
very  much.  The  late  Ma.ster  of  Balliol,  whose  historical 
scepticism  knew  hardly  any  limit,  was  fond  of  saying  that 
all  that  we  really  know  about  Shakespeare's  life  could  be 


VIRGIL    AND    TENNYSON  103 

in,  the  admission  of  many  to  civic  privileges  previously 
confined  to  a  few,  and  the  extension  to  wide  regions  of  as 
much  of  self-government  as  was  possible  without  a  repre- 
sentative system.  Both  poets,  then,  were  bom  and  grew 
up  in  times  of  *  storm  and  stress.'  Both  witnessed  in 
their  own  day  an  immense  expansion — ^the  one  a  city,  the 
other  a  kingdom  outgrowing  its  ancient  bounds ;  each 
saw  the  establishment,  amid  battle  and  throes,  of  a  world- 
wide empire.  Events  moved  more  slowly  in  the  later 
ease;  and  thus,  if  Tennyson  lived  longer,  he  saw  less, 
rather  than  more,  political  change,  for  the  thirty  or  thirty- 
five  additional  years  of  his  life  were  needed  to  complete 
the  revolution  begun  in  his  boyhood. 

Virgil  was  born  in  70  B.C.  His  birth-year,  the  year  of 
the  consulship  of  Pompey  and  Crassus,  may  be  taken  as 
the  beginning  of  the  Roman  revolution,  for  it  was  this  con- 
sulship that  began,  by  the  restoration  of  the  Tribunate,  to 
undo  the  work  of  Sulla,  while  the  memorable  impeach- 
ment of  Verres  by  Cicero  was,  if  not  the  first,  at  least  a 
signal  recognition  of  the  provincial  empire  of  Home. 
Virgil's  boyhood  and  youth,  then,  were  full  of  disturbance 
at  home  and  abroad.  The  great  campaigns  of  Pompey 
and  of  CsBsar  shook  alike  the  eastern  and  the  western 
world,  from  his  fifth  to  his  twentieth  year.  He  was  a 
child  of  seven  in  the  year  of  Catiline's  famous  conspiracy ; 
then  followed  the  long  ignoble  brawls  and  street-fights,  of 
which  those  of  Clodius  and  Milo  were  only  the  most 
notorious.  He  came  of  age  in  the  Roman  sense  in  the 
year  of  the  first  invasion  of  Britain.  He  was  twenty-one 
when  Caesar  crossed  the  Rubicon,  twenty-six  when  Caesar 
fell  by  the  dagger  of  Brutus,  thirty-nine  when  the  battle  of 
Actium  once  more  brought  a  settlement  into  view. 

Tennyson  in  like  manner  was  bom  in  the  last  years  of 
a  narrow  oUgarchy,  when  gigantic  wars  abroad  were  re- 
acting  upon  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium  at  home.  His 
birthday  fell  amid  the  opening  confiicts  of  the  Peninsular 
campaign,  and  in  the  year  in  which  Sir  Francis  Burdett 
introduced  his  first  motion  for  a  reform  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  effect  of  the  struggle  with  Napoleon  was 
for  a  time  to  retard  the  disintegration  of  the  English 
oligarchy.  But,  Waterloo  over,  and  peace  restored,  the 
movement  soon  began  once  more,  and  indeed  was  fomented 
by  the  distress  consequent  on  the  long  and  wasting  war. 


VIRGIL    AND    TENNYSON  105 

of  Tennyson,  which  made  them  both  such  happily  loyal, 
because  such  sincerely  and  spontaneously  loyal,  laureates, 
the  one  of  Augustus,  the  other  of  Victoria. 

Both  were  children  of  the  country,  and  of  the  real  un- 
sophisticated country.  Tennyson  was  bom  in  the  seques- 
tered hamlet  of  Somersby,  in  Lincolnshire ;  Virgil's  birth- 
place was  also  a  hamlet,  that  of  Andes — for  such  is  its 
strange  name — perhaps  the  modem  Pietola,  a  little  way 
out  of  Mantua.  Mantua  itself  was  no  large  town,  and 
Ajudes,  whether  three  or  seventeen  miles  away — ^for  this 
is  disputed — ^must  have  been  thoroughly  rural.  Li  birth 
Tennyson  had  the  advantage.  His  father,  though  dis- 
inherited in  favour  of  a  younger  brother,  was  the  eldest 
son  in  a  good  family,  and  was  a  beneficed  clergyman  and 
a  Doctor  of  Laws  of  Cambridge.  His  mother,  too,  came  of 
a  good  county  stock.  Virgil's  father,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  appear  to  have  been  a  hired  servant  to  one  Magius, 
a  carrier  or  courier,  perhaps  himself  in  addition  a  working 
potter,  who  by  industry  amassed  a  little  property  for 
himself,  which  he  increased  by  keeping  bees  and  buying 
up  tracts  of  woodland,  and  then,  like  the  industrious  ap- 
prentice, marrying  his  master's  daughter,  whose  name, 
Magia,  or  Magia  Polla,  may  perhaps  have  given  rise  to 
the  later  idea  that  Virgil  was  a  wizard. 

Both,  then,  were  brought  up  face  to  face  with  nature, 
with  the  country,  and  with  country  folks  and  ways.  A 
very  good  critic  of  Tennyson  once  made  the  pertinent 
remark  that  he  was  a  poet  of  the  country  in  a  sense  even 
beyond  that  of  ordinary  lovers  and  students  of  nature; 
that  he  was  the  only  g^eat  poet  who,  if  he  saw  a  turnip- 
field,  could  tell  with  a  farmer's  eye  how  the  turnips  were 
doing.  The  '  Georgics '  were  written  no  doubt  from  a 
similar  or  even  greater  personal  knowledge.  So  probably 
was  the  famous  picture  of  the '  Corycius  senex,'  the  old 
gardener  amid  his  roses  and  his  cucumbers,  with  whom 
perhaps  may  be  compared  the  two  *  Northern  Farmers.' 

Both,  however,  while  brought  up  in  the  depths  of  the 
country,  had  as  good  an  education  as  the  time  could  give. 
Tennyson  was  sent  first  to  Louth  Granunar  School,  then 
to  Trinity  College  in  Cambridge.  Virgil  went  to  school, 
first  at  Cremona,  then  at  fifteen  to  Milan — some  say  also 
to  Naples  to  learn  Greek  with  Parthenius — and  finally  at 
seventeen  was  entrusted  to  the  best  teachers  at  Rome. 


VIRGIL   AND    TENNYSON  107 

Virgil's  Byron  and  Coleridge  were  Catullus  and  Lucre- 
tius. Among  his  minor  youthful  pieces  are  several  in  the 
Catullian  vein.  One,  which  is  an  obvious  parody  of 
Catullus,  seems  again  to  contain  a  reminiscence  of  Virgil's 
home  and  early  days.  It  is  a  poem  on  an  old  muleteer, 
turned  schoolmaster  and  town-counciUor,  who,  in  lines 
which  are  a  travesty  of  Catullus*  well  known  stanzas  on 
his  old  yacht,  boasts  his  own  former  prowess  and  dedicates 
himself  to  Castor  and  Pollux,  the  traveller's  gods.  CatuUus 
belonged  to  the  literary  generation  just  before  Virgil;  his 
brief  and  brilliant  literary  career  was  at  its  height  in 
Virgil's  early  years.  It  was  natural  that  he  should  exer- 
cise a  strong  influence  over  the  poets  of  the  next  era ;  and 
indeed  it  is  clear  that  he  did  set  or  lead  a  fashion,  to  which 
Virgil  and  perhaps  Horace  also — ^though,  if  so,  he  after- 
wards resented  it — ^yielded  in  their  youth.  Catullus  died 
ivhen  Virgil  was  twenty-three ;  whether  they  ever  met 
we  do  not  know ;  it  may  be  remembered,  however,  that 
both  came  from  Lombardy.  Artistically,  they  had  much 
in  common — ^for  Virgil,  like  Catullus,  belonged  to  the 
Alexandrine  school — and  they  enjoyed  many  common 
friends.  Just  as  Tennyson  was  linked  to  Byron,  whom 
he  never  saw,  by  Rogers  and  Leigh  Hunt,  so  Virgil  was 
linked  to  Catullus  by  men  like  Pollio  and  Cinna. 

Some  other  minor  pieces  attributed  to  Virgil  are  ex- 
tant, less  creditable  followings  of  the  Catullian  fashion ; 
but  it  is  not  certain  that  Virgil  wrote  them,  and  they  are 
hardly  consonant  with  the  character  with  which,  as  will 
be  seen  later,  his  youth  was  credited.  Tennyson  had  also 
his  period  of  youthful  heat  and  trial,  but  he  passed  through 
it  well.  He  uttered  nothing  base,  and  hardly  anything 
bitter.  In  one  or  two  pieces  he  just  showed  what  he 
could  have  done  in  the  mordant  and  satiric  vein  had  he 
wished.  Such  a  piece  is  the  spirited  and  gay  repartee — a 
*  silly  squib '  he  called  it  himself — to  *  Crusty  Christopher,' 
the  dogmatic  and  heavy-handed  Professor  Wilson ;  while 
the  lines  on  Sir  E.  L3rtton  Bulwer,  entitled  the  *New 
Timon  and  the  Poets,'  which  were  sent  to  *  Punch,'  though 
not  sent  by  Tennyson  himself,  are  an  even  better  example. 

But  Virgil  soon  came  under  another  influence,  for  him 
far  more  potent  than  that  of  Catullus.  One  of  the  most 
striking  and  interesting  of  his  minor  poems  is  what  may 
perhaps  be  called  a  sixth-form  or  undergraduate  piec 


VIRGIL    AND    TENNYSON  109 

may  say  that  probably  here  too  his  position  was  really 
not  unlike  that  of  the  Tennyson  of  whom  Jowett  writes : 
'  Tennyson  was  very  much  of  a  scholar,  but  was  not  at  all 
a  pedant.  Once  he  said  to  me,  "  I  hate  learning,"  by  which 
I  understood  him  to  mean  that  he  hated  the  minutisB  of 
criticism  compiled  by  the  Dryasdusts.'  Both  certainly 
loved  simplicity,  but  the  simplicity  of  knowledge,  not  of 
ignorance. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  Virgil's  '  sweet  Muses '  did 
return,  and  that  he  found  himself  loving  philosophy,  but 
writing  poetry.  But  this  love  of  philosophy  was  in  him 
no  passing  undergraduate  phase.  It  sank  deep  into  the 
very  tissue  of  his  being  :  it  persisted  to  his  latest  day.  In 
his  last  year,  when  setting  out  oni  the  final  fatal  journey 
to  Greece  and  Asia,  his  purpose  was,  we  are  told,  to  finish 
the  '  .^Elneid,'  and  then  to  give  up  the  rest  of  his  life  to 
philosophy.  The  Epicurean  philosophy  was  fashionable 
in  the  Rome  of  Virgil's  youth,  and  his  tutor  Siron  was  its 
most  fashionable  professor.  It  had  two  main  branches  of 
interest  and  two  aspects.  It  was  largely  a  materialistic 
philosophy,  attempting  to  give  an  account  of  the  physical 
universe,  dealing  therefore  with  questions  rather  of 
natural  science  than  of  philosophy  proper.  In  the  realm 
of  religion  it  preached  a  kind  of  mechanical  fatalism,  a 
'  polytheistic  deism,'  if  such  a  phrase  can  be  coined.  This, 
like  other  agnostic  systems,  produced  in  shallower  natures 
an  easy  hedonism — •  let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow 
we  die ' ;  in  deeper,  a  sort  of  strenuous  positivism  or  re- 
ligion of  irreligion---'  let  us  toil  and  strive,  for  the  long 
night  Cometh,  and  in  the  g^ave  there  is  neither  wisdom 
nor  knowledge.'  The  first  may  be  seen  in  Memmius  Ge- 
mellus or  in  Horace,  who  calls  himself  a '  hog  of  Epicurus' 
sty ' ;  the  second  in  Lucretius  and  in  Virgil.  The  debt, 
the  deep  debt,  of  Virgil  to  Lucretius  is  obvious  and  avowed, 
but  its  character  and  limits  are  not  always  understood. 

Here  once  more  the  parallel  with  Tennyson  becomes 
singularly  illuminating.  Tennyson  and  his  friends  at 
Cambridge,  like  Virgil  in  the  class-rooms  of  Rome,  com- 
plained of  the  narrow  range,  the  cut-and-dried  nature,  of 
much  academic  study.  His  fine,  but  too  denunciatory 
sonnet  on  the  Cambridge  of  his  day,  ending — 

'  You  that  do  profess  to  teach. 
And  teach  us  nothing,  feeding  not  the  heart ' — 


VIRXJIL    AND    TENNYSON  111 

the  poet,  and  through  the  poet  the  world,  the  secrets  of 
nature  and  science.  If  he  cannot  learn  these,  the  poet 
would  prefer  the  life  of  seclusion  and  ease,  unknown  to 
fortune  and  to  fame.*  This  is  worth  toiling  for,  not  the 
giddy  and  gaudy  glories  of  the  senate  and  the  market- 
place, of  the  throne  and  the  sword ;  yes, 

*  Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas,' 

but  also — 

*  Fortunatus  et  ille,  deos  qui  novit  agrestes, 
Panaque  Silvanumque  senem  Njouphasque  sorores/ 

That  this  love  of  science  was  one  of  Virgil's  first  loves 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  it  had  appeared  already  in  the 
Sixth  of  the  *  Eclogues,'  in  the  famous  song  of  Silenus,  the 
language  of  which  is  strikingly  Lucretian;  and  indeed 
still  earlier,  in  the  *  Culex.'  Its  persistence  is  proved  by 
its  reappearance  in  the  First '  ^neid,'  in  the  song  of  the 
minstrel  lopas,  who,  like  Silenus,  sings  of  ^  the  wandering 
moon  and  the  sun's  eclipse,'  and 

*  Whence  mankind  and  cattle  came, 
The  source  of  water  and  of  flame,' 

and  again  in  the  Sixth  JSneid,  in  that  transcendent  central 
passage,  beginning — 

*  Frincipio  caBlum  ac  terram  camposque  liquentes,' 

which  Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Myers  has  rendered  so  finely — the  most 
Virgilian  passage  in  Virgil,  as  he  calls  it. 

Tennyson's  early  poems  in  exactly  the  same  way  show 
this  combination  of  interests,  which  was  to  reappear  later 
in  more  splendid  and  mature  expression.  The  chief  mark 
of  his  poems  in  the  little  Lincolnshire  volume,  put  out  by 
him  and  his  brother  when  still  at  school,  is  the  display 
made,  with  all  the  innocent  exaggeration  of  boyhood, 
at  once  of  literary  learning  and  of  scientific  study.  This 
is  shown  by  the  very  titles  of  the  poems,  *Apollonius' 
Complaint,'  *  The  High  Priest  to  Alexander,'  *  Mithridates 


*  There  a  story  that  Virgil  said  that  the  only  thing  which  does  not  caui«e 
satiety  is  knowledge.    (*  Tib.  CI.  Donati  Vita,'  xviii,  73.) 


VIRGIL    AND    TENNYSON  119 

Greek,  Roman,  and  modem,  and  he  often  maked  scholarly 
allusions  and  appropriations,  and  occasionally,  though  not 
often,  obviously  imitates  or  translates.  But  the  amount 
of  his  imitation  has  been,  as  he  himself  long  ago  pointed 
out,  much  over-estimated  by  the  class  of  critics  who  are 
inclined — ^to  use  his  own  phrase — to  *  swamp  the  sacred 
poets  with  themselves.' 

In  addition  to  the  charge  of  plagiarism  thus  brought 
against  both  of  them,  they  were  taken  to  task  for  yet 
other  faults,  faults  of  manner,  faults  of  matter.  Virgil 
was  accused  of  a  *  new  Euphuism '  of  a  special  and  subtle 
kind,  by  which  he  gave  an  unusual  and  recondite  meaning 
to  simple  words.  The  critics  could  not  call  him  either 
bouGibastic  or  poverty-stricken,  they  therefore  quarrelled 
'with  what  he  and  Horace  considered  his  great  achieve- 
ment, and  what  surely  is  a  secret  of  his  grand  style,  his 
new  and  inspired  combination  of  old  and  simple  materials. 
The  truth  would  seem  to  be  that  Virgil,  like  Tennyson, 
held  the  theory  that  poetry  and  poetic  diction  must  often 
suggest  rather  than  express,  that  you  cannot  tie  down  the 
poet  to  one  meaning  and  one  only.  *  Poetry  is  like  shot 
silk,'  Tennyson  once  said,  *  with  many  glancing  colours,  it 
combines  many  meanings ' : — 

*  Words,  like  Nature,  half  reveal 
And  half  conceal  the  soul  within ' ; 

and  this  is  exactly  the  theory  applied  by  Conington  to  the 
elucidation  of  Virgil.* 

A  more  serious  charge  is  that  levelled  against  the 
characters,  and  especially  the  heroes,  of  their  epics. 
Tennyson's  mediaevalism  is  unreal :  he  has  sophisticated 
the  masculine  directness  of  Malory.     The  hero   of  the 

*  Idylls '  is  a  prig,  and  a  blameless  prig :  he  is  too  good,  he 
is  even  goody.  This  has  often  been  said  of  Tennyson  and 
King  Arthur.  It  is  exactly  what  is  said  of  Virgil  and  piua 
^neas,  Virgil's  hero  is  a  prig  or  a  *  stick ' — *  always,'  as 
Charles  James  Fox  remarked,  '  either  insipid  or  odious ' : 
his  blood  does  not  flow,  his  battles  are  battles  of  the  stage. 
Virgil's  epic  is  a  drawing-room  epic.  These  are  critieisms 
often  made,  and  there  is  a  certain  truth  in  them.     JSneas 

*  For   instance    in   his   note  on  'Assurgens  fluctu  nimbosus  Orion,' 

*  .fineid,'  i,  535. 


VIRGIL    AND    TENNYSON  129 

With  both  may  be  not  inaptly  compared  Tennyson's  fine 
and  famous  lines — 

*  O  well  for  him  whose  will  is  strong  I 
He  suffers,  but  he  will  not  suffer  long.' 

Had  Tennyson  been  more  bold  and  determined  with  his 
epic,  reared  a  more  sustained  architecture,  and  finished 
all  in  a  style  and  on  a  scale  more  fully  corresponding  to 
the  pronoise  of  the  first  *  Morte  d' Arthur,'  the  resemblance 
might  have  been  more  complete,  if  less  interesting. 

Yet  when  all  deductions  have  been  made,  the  parallel 
seems  weU  worth  working  out.  How  close  it  is  perhaps 
we  can  hardly  yet  tell.  Hereafter,  when  these  things  shall, 
have  become  history,  when  the  Victorian  age  like  the 
Augustan  shall  lie  'foreshortened  in  the  tract  of  time,' 
its  separate  stars  gathered  to  one  glittering  constellation^ 
it  will  be  more  easy  to  pronounce.  Yet  assuredly  it  is 
strikingly  close.  Were  there  ever  two  poets  at  once  so 
profound  and  so  popular,  satisfying  at  the  same  time  the 
highest  and  the  widest  tastes ;  poets  the  delight  of  the 
artist  and  the  student;  the  favourites,  and  more,  the 
friends,  of  kings  ;  the  heroes,  so  far  as  men  of  letters  can 
be  heroes,  of  an  empire  ?  Did  we  hold  Virgil's  creed,  we 
might  be  tempted  at  times  to  think — though  the  dates  do 
not  exactly,  but  only  nearly,  correspond — of  that  ancient 
doctrine  so  wonderfully  handled  by  Plato  and  by  Virgil 
himself,  and  to  fancy  that  the  tender  and  pensive,  yet 
withal  manly,  soul — *Leal  bard,  lips  worthy  of  the  laurelled 
god' — which  went  to  join  MusaBus  on  the  Elysian  lawn 
nineteen  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  had,  after  twice 
rolling  the  fateful  cycle,  found  a  third  avatar,  and  lived 
again,  well  nigh  two  thousand  years  later,  in  the  English 
Laureate  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  Tennyson's 
faith,  though  the  doctrine  had  much  attraction  for  him, 
was  not  this.  Rather  it  was  one  which  looked  ever  for- 
ward and  upward — *  On  and  always  on.' 


Vol.  198.— iVb.  385. 


MICHELET   AS   AN    HISTORIAN  181 

was,  however,  not  cast  in  the  clerical  mould.  Credulous, 
curious,  sanguine,  and  versatile,  a  kind  of  Mr  Micawber, 
whose  favourite  phrase,  in  the  midst  of  persistent  pecuni- 
ary troubles,  was  *Tout  s'arrangera,'  he  was  inevitably- 
drawn  into  the  din  and  dust  of  Paris.  In  the  critical 
month  of  August  1702  he  came  to  the  capital,  and  entered 
the  printing-house  of  assignats  in  the  Place  Yenddtne. 
His  career  was  the  reverse  of  successful.  He  was  bank- 
rupt more  than  once,  and  tasted  the  solitude  of  La  P^lagie, 
not  the  most  commodious  of  prisons.  He  wrote  an  un- 
successful novel,  printed  an  ecclesiastical  gazette,  was 
practicaUy  ruined  by  the  suppression  of  his  printing-office 
in  1812,  but  sprouted  up  again  ever  youthful  and  ebullient 
as  male  housekeeper  to  a  private  lunatic  asylum. 

It  will  be  agreed  that  life  did  not  open  very  radiantly 
for  Jules.  The  l€ul  lost  his  mother — a  poor,  sietd,  depressed 
creature  from  the  Ardennes  country,  whose  physical 
strength  was  plainly  inculequate  to  cope  with  usurious 
duns  and  the  pangs  of  hunger-when  he  was  just  beginning 
to  need  her  most.  Laborious  days  spent  in  a  dark  cellar 
putting  up  type ;  *  up  to  fifteen  years  no  meat,  no  wine, 
no  fire;  bread  and  vegetables  most  often  cooked  with 
water  and  salt';  no  brothers  and  sisters,  and  no  play- 
mates. Then  there  was  the  shadow  of  the  Napoleonic 
wars,  the  sense  of  squandered  lives,  of  hopeless  political 
and  military  ruin,  of  stified  thought  and  strangled  com- 
merce. The  boy  never  forgot  the  horror  of  d'Enghien's 
execution,  and  he  confessed  afterwards  that  nothing  had 
more  enabled  him  to  understand  the  sombre  monotony  of 
the  Middle  Ages  than  to  have  languished  as  a  child  in  the 
last  days  of  the  Empire.  *  I  felt  in  my  sombre  cave  what 
the  Jew  dreamt  of  when  he  built  the  pyrandds . . .  what  the 
man  in  the  Middle  Ages  dreamt  when  he  drew  his  furrow 
under  the  shade  of  the  feudal  tower.'  The  residts  of  the 
Gorsican  ambition^  indeed,  were  brought  home  to  the 
slender  Michelet  mSnage  in  the  most  practical  of  all  ways 
— dear  food,  and  a  derisory  indemnity  for  the  suppression 
of  their  printing  press.  Perhaps  it  was  as  well  for  the 
future  historian  that  he  should  thus  early  have  experienced 
the  repercussion  of  high  politics  on  everyday  life. 

This  child  of  ardent  imagination  and  tender  feminine 
sympathies,  morbidly  shy  and  diffident,  quick  to  tears,  but 
full  of  enthusiasm  and  poetry,  passed  a  youtti  •  devoured 

k2 


/ 


184  MICHELET    AS   AN    HISTORIAN 

in  the  company  of  a  few  great  authors,  undistracted  by 
the  ordinary  pleasures  and  friendships  of  youth,  the  sound, 
though  perhaps  too  rhetorical  drill  of  the  Lyc^  Charle- 
magne, and  then  a  life  of  almost  incessant  lecturing  and 
teaching  in  classical,  philosophical,  and  historical  subjects. 
*Oreat  thoughts,'  said  Yauvenargues,  'come  from  the 
heart.*  Is  this  not  also  true  of  great  histories  as  well? 
At  any  rate,  the  historical  work  of  Michelet  flowed  from 
this  source,  and  was  inspired  by  a  most  constant  and  per- 
f  ervid  social  ideal.  Though  the  man  had  an  astounding 
plenitude  of  rhetorical  resource,  and  could  pour  out 
unending  melodies  of  scorn  and  rapture,  sentiment  and 
eloquence,  ail  controlled  by  that  delicate  sense  of  rhythm 
which  is  the  finest  gift  of  the  artist  in  words,  yet  he 
cared  little  for  the  exercise  of  these  precious  talents,  save 
as  a  means  to  an  end.  '  I  did  not  wish  to  live  by  my  pen,' 
he  writes,  speaking  of  his  first  scholastic  api>ointment  at 
a  small  private  school.  '  I  thought  then,  as  Rousseau,  that 
literature  ought  to  be  a  thing  reserved,  the  fine  luxury 
of  life,  the  inmost  flower  of  the  soul.'  The  main  part  of 
life  must  be  practical,  and  what  more  practical  career 
than  that  of  the  teacher?  ' L'enseignement  c'est  le 
sacerdoce.' 

The  life  of  a  teacher  may  be  difficult  to  reconcile  with 
the  severe  labour  of  original  historical  research,  but  it  is 
generally  held  to  bring  compensating  advantages — greater 
perspicuity,  greater  sense  of  proportion,  greater  width  of 
sympathy.  To  this  category  of  benefits  it  should  be  added 
that  teaching  always  meant  for  Michelet  friendship,  and 
that  friendship  had  meant  love.  Other  historians  had 
been  more  brilliant,  judicious,  and  profound.  The  special 
value  of  his  own  work  was  that,  if  less  bookish,  it  was 
closer  to  life  than  many  elegant  and  reputable  perform- 
ances, for  it  was  written  by  a  man  of  the  people  who  had 
loved  and  suffered  more  than  most  professors;  and  the 
thoughts  had  been  struck  out  in  ardent  and  sympathetic 
communion  with  the  young. 

The  great  source  of  Michelet's  strength  lies  in  the 
clearness  with  which  he  conceives  his  end.  He  does  not 
care  a  fig  for  mere  erudition,  he  eschews  footnotes,  he 
rarely  affords  the  readers  a  glimpse  of  his  scaffoldings. 
He  may  be  tediously  emphatic  in  his  rhetoric,  but  he  is 
a  man  with  a  gospel,  and  the  power  to  hold  his  audience. 


188  MICHELET    AS    AN    HISTORIAN 

« 
tionary  view  of  Christianity.*    In  an  eloquent  little  book, 

the '  Bible  de  rHumanit^,'  published  in  1861,  that  is  to  say, 

after  Strauss  and  Renan  had  respectively  abolished  and 

evaporated  Christ,  he  reviewed  the  leading  creeds  of  the 

world,  indicating  his  own  marked  preference  for  theancient 

religion  of  the  Persians.    The  creeds  fall  into  two  classes, 

those  of  the  Peoples  of  the  Light,  and  those  of  the  Peoples 

of  the  Twilight,  the  Night,  and  the  dair-Obacur.    In  the 

first  division  ve  have  India,  Persia,  and  Greece:  in  the 

second  division  Egypt,  the  religion  of  death ;  Syria  and 

Phrygia,  the  religion  of  enervation ;  the  worship  of  Bacchus- 

Sabbas,  typifying  tyranny  and  military  orgies ;  Judaism, 

the  religion  of  the  slave ;  Christianity,  the  religion  of  the 

woman.     Of  the  last  reUgion  he  writes  :— 

'  Three  women  begin  the  whole  thing.  Anne,  mother  of  the 
Virgin ;  Elizabeth,  her  cousin,  mother  of  St  John,  and  another 
Anne,  prophetess,  and  wife  of  the  high  priest. . . .  The  Messianic 
condition  (to  be  elderly  and  so  far  childless)  was  found  pi^eciscly 
in  the  cousins  Anno  and  Elizabeth.* 

The  '  Protoevangelium  Jacobi,' '  innocent  and  amusing,'  is 
the  book  which  throws  the  clearest  light  upon  this  f  eniinino 
aspect  of  Christianity.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  more  of 
Michelet's  treatment  of  Christian  origins,  for  it  is  confess- 
edly slight,  and  indeed  little  more  than  a  repetition  of 
Renan*8  sentimental  and  unsatisfactory  idyll.  The  curious 
fact  is  that  Michelet  seems  never  to  have  recognised  that 
Christianity  has  ansrthing  to  say  to  grown  men.  The 
whole  history  of  Christian  development  is  explained  upon 
the  hypothesis  of  a  secular  conspiracy  between  the  priest 
and  the  woman,  culminating  in  the  domination  of  the 
Jesuits,  the  organisation  of  the  confessional,  the  break-up 
of  family  life,  the  Vendue,  and  the  counter-Revolution.  The 
antidote  to  this  emasculating  influence  was  to  be  f  omid  in 
the  study  of  national  history,  in  a  closer  and  more  refined 
union  between  man  and  wife,  and  in  a  sense  of  the  solidarity 
of  man  with  nature. 

It  is  well  that  an  historian  should  offer  prescriptions, 
and  Michelet*8  prescriptions  are  admirable.  No  one,  except 


*  t 


L'^^lfle  6tait  poor  mot  nn  mondo  Atraoger,  de  cariosity  pure,  oomme 
e(kt  6t6  1a  lane.  Co  que  Je  savate  lo  mieux  de  cet  aatre  p&li  c'est  que  see 
JottTM  ^talent  couiptes,  qu'U  avait  peu  k  vivrc.*  (*  Hist,  de  Fr./  Pr^f.,  1860, 
p.  xl.)  I 


MICHELET    AS    AN    HISTORIAN  189 

perhaps  Georges  Sand  in  ^Mdlle  la  Quintinie,'  has  described 
the  evils  of  the  confessional  so  eloquently,  or  has  studied 
with  such  delicate  insight  and  sympathy  the  influence  of 
priest  upon  woman  through  history.  But  while  there  are 
clearly  many  elements  of  truth  in  Michelet's  view,  it  is 
hothing  short  of  astounding  that  an  historian,  a  poet,  and 
4  moralist,  steeped  in  the  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
should  have  been  dead  to  the  rational  and  practical  side 
of  Church  teaching,  should  have  ignored  the  extent  to 
which  it  fortified  mind  and  character  in  barbarous  ages, 
and  should  have  attributed  the  ultimate  victory  of  a  great 
institution  and  scheme  of  thought  to  the  insidious  influence 
of  priest  upon  woman  and  woman  upon  man.  Fortunately 
this  unsympathetic  attitude  had  not  been  adopted  until 
after  the  completion  of  the  first  six  volumes  of  the  'History'' 
of  France,'  which  carry  the  reader  down  to  the  end  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 

For  diplomatic  correspondence  he  had  little  taste,  and 
in  this  was  the  opposite  of  Ranke,  '  notre  aimable  savant 
ing^nieux,  Ranke,  qui  nous  a  tant  appris,'  who  seems  to  find 
nothing  but  state  papers  entirely  interesting.  It  was  ne- 
cessary, of  course,  to  read  Granvelle  and  similar  authorities 
for  thb  period  of  Charles  V ;  and  Michelet  is  careful  to  ex- 
plain that  if  his  treatment  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIII  seems 
to  be  a  tissue  of  Court  intrigue,  it  is  because  (as  Cardinal 
Mazarin  explained  to  the  Queen)  the  capture  of  the  King 
for  tT7o  days  meant  a  revolution  in  policy.  But  having 
chosen  the  people  for  his  hero,  he  despises  cabinet  intrigues, 
deeming  that  they  have  been  accorded  an  excessive  import- 
ance in  historical  works.  Thus  Cato  introduces  him  to  the 
'rudeness of  the  old  Latin  genius,' revealing  'apeople  patient 
and  tenacious,  disciplined  and  regular,  avaricious  and  avid.* 
Grermany  is  made  manifest  in  Grinmfi*s '  Weisthiimer,'  that 
splendid  collection  of  old  legal  custom  and  ritual,  and  in 
tiieveritings  and  table-talk  of  Luther,  from  which  Michelet 
published  two  volumes  of  extracts.  So,  too,  Haxthausen's 
agrarian  studies  first  discover  for  him  the  true  Russia. 

.Michelet  always  looks  behind  the  courtly  records  for 
dues  to  the  real  x>opular  life,  and  thus  shows  the  way  to 
Ma  J.  R.  Green  and  the  later  g^oup  of  social  historians. 
H«  claims  to  have  discovered  '  the  great,  the  sombre,  the 
tenable  fourteenth  century,'  by  discarding  Froissart,  who, 
spinning  like  a  gaudy  dragon-fly  over  a  dank  and  turbid 


MICHELET    AS   AN    HISTORIAN  141 

g^ves  rise  to  the  following  reflections :  *  The  most  terrifying 
thing  is  that  there  are  no  eyes.  At  least,  one  scarcely  sees 
them.  What?  This  terrihle  blind  man  shall  be  the  guide 
of  nations  ?  Obscurity,  vertigo,  fatality,  absolute  ignorance 
of  the  future — this  is  what  one  reads  here.*  It  is  charac- 
teristic of  him  to  seize  upon  some  little  scrap  of  personal 
evidence  and  hold  it  up  to  the  spectators  as  typical  and 
decisive  of  a  man  or  even  of  a  period.  In  the  hands  of  a 
great  imaginative  writer  such  a  method  is  always  effective, 
often  convincing,  sometimes  very  misleading. 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  the  finest  portions  of 
Michelet's  historical  work  are  the  first  six  volumes  of  the 

*  History  of  France.'  They  were  written  between  1833  and 
1843,  when  he  was  Professor  at  the  ]£cole  Normale  and  the 
College  de  France,  and  also  chief  of  the  historical  division 
of  the  Archives  Nationales.  The  *  History  of  the  French 
Revolution '  was  written  between  1845  and  1853,  the  •  Re- 
naissance and  the  New  Monarchy*  from  1855  to  1867,  the 

*  History  of  the  Nineteenth  Century '  in  1869.  It  will  thus 
be  seen  that  the  histories  of  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and 
eighteenth  centuries  were  composed  after  the  author  had 
steeped  himself  in  the  passions  of  the  Revolution.  They 
are  less  complete,  less  sure,  less  massive  than  the  earlier 
work.  They  are  defaced  by  the  introduction  of  pathologi- 
cal explanations  which  are  often  repellent  and  seldom  con- 
vincing, and  by  an  uncontrolled  hatred  of  monarchy  and 
religion.*  Besides  this,  the  literature  of  these  later  cen- 
turies was  too  vast  to  be  mastered  in  its  entirety ;  and 
Michelet  selected  and  used  his  fragments  with  caprice. 
Melody,  eloquence,  divination  are  there :  the  voice  is  no 
longer  that  of  the  poet-savant  but  that  of  the  poet- 
politician. 

It  has  been  truly  said  by  a  distinguished  scholar  that 
we  are  apt  to  overrate  the  morals  and  to  underrate  the 
brains  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Michelet  certainly  underrated 
the  value  and  originality  of  medieval  thought;  and,  despite 

*  This  would  be  sufficiently  clear  from  Michelet's  own  avowal  even  if  there 
were  nothing  else  to  support  it.  '  Quand  je  rentrai,  que  Je  me  retoumai, 
revis  mon  Moyen  Age,  cette  mer  superbe  de  sottises,  une  hilarity  violente  me 
prit,  et  au  seizldme  au  dix-septi^me  siMe  Je  fls  une  terrible  fdte.  Babelais 
et  Voltaire  ont  ri  dans  leur  tombeau.  Les  dieux  crev^,  les  rois  pourris  ont 
apparu  sans  voile.  La  fade  histoire  du  oonvenu,  cette  prude  honteuse  dont 
on  86  oontentait,  a  disparo.  De  MMicia  k  Louis  XIV  une  autopsie  s^vdre  a 
caract^ris^  oe  gouvemement  de  cadavres.'    (*  Hist,  de  France,*  Pr^f.,  1800.) 


MICHELET    AS    AN    HISTORIAN  145 


loves  the  Revolution,  which  was  *  gloriously 
daughter  of  philosophy,  not  of  the  deficit';  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  hates  the  Terror,  and  has  arrived  at  a  very  just 
estimate  of  Robespierre.  He  is  therefore  forced  to  explain 
how  it  was  that  so  glorious  a  movement,  *  which  demanded 
that  a  whole  people  should  elevate  itself  above  its  material 
habits,*  should  decline  upon  so  miserable  an  issue.  His 
answer  is  that  certain  assignable  mistakes  were  committed. 
In  the  first  place,  the  Ck>nstituent  lacked  le  sens  4ducatif. 
It  was  prolific  in  laws,  but  it  did  not  supply  the  means  of 
education  by  which  those  laws  could  be  made  intelligible. 
Its  work  was  merely  political  and  superficial,  fruitful  in 
laws,  sterile  in  dogmas ;  whereas  it  ought  to  have  been 
social,  profound,  positive.  Then  the  Ck>nstituent,  tempted 
by  the  virtues  of  Rabaut,  Gr^goire,  and  Camus,  made  the 
mistake  of  compromising  with  the  Church ;  while,  lastly, 
war  should  have  been  declared  a  year  earlier,  before  the 
air  had  become  thick  with  suspicion,  and  when  France 
could  have  taken  the  offensive  against  unready  foes,  for  it 
was  the  defensive  war  which  produced  the  September 
massacres. 

These  explanations  neglect  the  facts  that  the  Reign  of 
Terror  and  spontaneous  anarchy  had  really  begun  in  1789 ; 
that  the  process  of  political  education  cannot  be  accom- 
plished by  a  stroke  of  the  pen ;  and  that  France  was  wholly 
unready  for  a  breach  with  Catholicism.  The  one  remedy 
which  to  Mirabeau  and  Malouet  seemed  possible — ^the 
establishment  of  a  constitutional  monarchy  after  the 
English  pattern — ^is  by  Michelet  rejected  with  scorn. 

'  The  Middle  Ages,*  he  writes, '  only  possessed  one  hyx>ocrisy ; 
we  possess  two :  the  hyi)ocrisy  of  authority,  the  hyi)ocrisy  of 
liberty;  in  a  word  the  priest,  the  Englishman — the  two  forms  of 
TartufFe.  The  priest  acts  princijxally  on  women  or  the  i)easant ; 
the  Englishman  on  the  classes  bourgeoises,' 

Perhaps  after  all  Michelet  was  right,  and  the  experi- 
ment of  parliamentary  government  is  alien  to  the  genius 
of  French  republicanism.  Yet  the  hypocritical  side  of 
English  liberty  was  not  so  apparent  in  1789  as  it  was  thirty 
years  later ;  and  Montesquieu's  ideal  picture  of  us  had  not 
yet  been  torn  to  shreds  by  the  inconoolasts  of  constitu- 
tional history. 

Anacharsis  Clootz  once  said  on  a  famous  ocr*a8ion. 
Vol.  198.— iVo.  385,  L 


146  MICHELET   AS   AN    HISTORIAN 

'France,  gu^ris-toi  des  individns.'  Michelet,  who  indi- 
vidualises everything,  who  paints  character  so  boldly  and 
brilliantly,  gives  this  to  his  country  by  way  of  crowning 
precept  after  issuing  from  the  fiery  furnace  of  '94.  The 
great  things  of  the  Revolution  were,  in  his  view,  done,  not 
by  a  few  men,  but  by  the  masses ;  he  disbelieved  in  the . 
artificial  mechanism  of  the  revolutionary  day.  The  growth 
of  France  was  not,  as  so  many  had  written,  the  result  of 
the  fostering  care  of  the  monarchy ;  and  it  was  Michelet's 
aim  to  prove  the  fact  in  his  concluding  volumes.  Germany 
and  Italy  had  lived  by  the  light  of  a  few  bright  stars ; 
France  *  by  the  conunon  soul ' :  *  sans  la  France  le  FranQais 
n'est  plus.'  All  the  more  difficult  was  the  task  of  the  his- 
torian, called  upon  to  evoke  this  varied  and  multitudinous 
life.  'Doucement,  messieurs  les  morts,'  whispered  the 
Archivist  to  his  sallow  cohorts,  *  procMons  par  ordre,  8*il 
vous  platt.'  And  what  a  long,  noble,  and  crowded  pro- 
cession it  is,  glowing  with  light  and  air  and  animation  I 
Who  can  forget  the  portraits  of  Joan  of  Arc,  and  Luther, 
'with  his  heroic  joy  and  laughter,'  and  Louis  XI,  and 
Savonarola?  Who  has  ever  written  a  finer  page  upon 
Turenne? 

'  In  this  time  of  SiMtnish  emphasis  and  heroes  d  la  Comeille, 
prose  appeared  in  Turenne.  It  was  seen  that  war  was  an 
afTair  of  logic,  mathematics,  and  reason,  that  it  did  not  demand 
great  heat,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  cold  good  sense,  firmness  and 
patience ;  much  of  that  special  instinct  of  the  sportsman  and 
his  dog  which  can  i>erf  ectly  be  reconciled  with  mediocrity  of 
character.  Romances  have  invested  Turenne  with  an  air  of 
philanthropy,  making  him  a  kind  of  philanthropist,  a  warlike 
F^nelon.  There  is  nothing  of  all  that.  The  reality  is  that  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  having  lost  its  furies  and  its  heats,  and 
having  used  up  five  or  six  generations  of  indifferent  generals, 
without  passions  or  ideas,  finished  by  producing  the  technical 
man,  or  incarnate  art,  light,  ice,  and  calculus.  No  emotion  re- 
mains.   It  is  a  quasi-padflc  war,  bat  none  the  less  murderous.' 

Could  anything  more  truly  illustrate  the  workings  of  an 
epoch  in  a  man,  or  the  light  which  a  man  casts  upon  an 
epoch? 

'  The  Renaissance  did  not  regard  antiquity  as  a  varied 
world  of  mingled  ages  and  infinitely  di£Ferent  colours,  but 
as  Eternal  Venus.'  Michelet,  who  sweeps  the  field  of  history 
with  a  microscope,  was  not  in  danger  of  falling  into  the 


MICHELET   AS    AN    HISTORIAN  147 

error  which  he  attributes  to  the  Italians  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  which  certainly  vitiates  the  aesthetic  criticisni 
of  Winckelmann  and  Goethe.  His  antiquity  is  living  and 
concrete,  and  coloured  with  all  the  hues  of  the  spectrum. 
He  paints  the  movement  and  the  pcussion  of  crowds  with 
the  power  of  Tintoret,  overhears  the  chatter  of  the 
peasant's  cottage  and  the  wineshops,  listens  to  the  cfwri 
and  his  housekeeper,  to  the  priest  and  his  p^nitente, 
watches  the  fingers  of  the  machinist  tending  his  tyrant 
of  steel,  follows  the  plough  as  it  shears  through  the  loam, 
catches  the  malevolent  gossip  from  the  backstairs  of  the 
palace,  and  throws  his  ardent  nature  into  every  aspect  of 
human  toil  and  every  manifestation  of  human  character. 
The  great  spectacle  of  historic  France,  with  its  varying 
climes  and  tempers  and  manners  of  Uving,  emerges  for  the 
first  time  into  clear  light  with  the  advent  of  the  Capetian 
dynasty.  There  is  a  character  which  persists,  discerned 
equally  by  Polybius  and  Strabo  and  by  the  intelligent 
English  traveller  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a  buoyancy,  an 
tfisouciance^  a  brilliant  courage,  a  nimble  wit,  a  sensual 
appetite.  Mtdtiply  coarseness  and  power  and  it  gives  you 
Rabelais  or  Danton;  add  the  nervousness  which  comes 
from  crowds,  and  you  get  the  furies  of  1358  and  1792. 
Some  large  spirits,  a  F^nelon  or  a  Renan,  seem  to  contain 
all  the  intellectual  nuances  in  their  Protean  varieiy ;  but, 
large  as  that  variety  is,  there  is  no  trait  of  national  thought 
or  feeling  which  has  escaped  Michelet's  piercing  vision. 
He  has  written,  says  Taine,  *  the  lyrical  epic '  of  French 
history,  lyrical  in  the  intensity  of  its  personal  feeling,  and 
yet  an  epic  in  that  it  recreates  poetically  the  story  of  a 
nation. 

Yon  Banke  thought  that  the  historian's  mission  was 
merely  to  relate  what  had  actually  happened, '  was  eigent- 
lich  geschehen  ist.'  Michelet,  however,  was  constitution- 
ally incapable  of  seeing  anything  through  plain  glass.  In 
his  best  period  he  felt  passionately  with  every  movement 
and  every  phase,  breathing  life  and  love  whithersoever  he 
passed.  '  Let  it  be,'  he  writes,  ^  my  part  in  the  future  not 
to  have  attained  but  to  have  marked  the  goal  of  history, 
to  have  given  it  a  name  which  no  one  as  yet  has  uttered. 
Thierry  called  it  narrative  and  M.  Gxuzot  analysis.  I  have 
named  it  resurrection,  and  this  name  will  remain  to  it.' 
In  view  of  the  historical  methods  at  present  practised  in 

L  2 


MICHELET    AS    AN    HISTORIAN  149 

*  the  deplorable  phUanthropy  *  of  Fructidor,  which  pre- 
ferred to  send  its  victims  to  rot  away  in  Cayenne  rather 
than  to  expiate  their  royalism  on  the  block.  M.  Houssaye, 
working  from  the  police  reports  in  the  Paris  archives, 
shows  how  much  popularity  still  remained  to  Napoleon 
even  in  the  Hundred  Days.  Michelet,  who  remembered 
how  the  Dames  des  Halles  stood  under  their  umbrellas  in 
the  Maroh^  des  Innocents  and  cursed  the  man  who  had 
robbed  them  of  their  coffee,  will  have  none  of  this.  The 
misfortune  is  that  in  order  to  blacken  Napoleon  he  must 
needs  gild  the  last  moments  of  the  Directorate. 

But  when  all  is  said,  Michelet  remains  a  force  in  histo- 
rical literature  which  no  subsequent  generation  can  afford 
to  neglect.  His  reflection  is  often  childish,  his  analysis  de- 
ficient, his  passion  strained ;  there  are  pages  of  inaccuracy, 
pages  of  hallucination,  pages  of  prurience.  Whole  nations 
are  sometimes  travestied,  and  the  wilfulness  of  an  over- 
strung genius  often  flings  its  fantastic  colours  upon  the 
page.  But  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  men  and 
women  who  think,  feel,  and  act.  All  things,  indeed,  which 
pass  through  the  furnace  of  that  glowing  mind  come  out 
human.  Nations  and  rivers,  birds  and  storms,  moun- 
tains and  insects  are  endowed  with  living  personaUty. 
Every  province  has  its  special  character  and  ^0o^,  The 
Ardennes  is  '  diy ,  critical,  serious ' ;  Flanders  is  *  a  prosaic 
Lombardy,  lacking  the  vine  and  the  sun ' ;  we  read  of  *  the 
spiritual  lightness '  of  Guyenne,  the  pompous  and  /  solemn 
eloquence*  of  Burgundy,  the  'contradictory  genius'  of 
Poitou,  the  '  violent  petulance  '  of  Provence.  Upon  such 
passages  the  foe  of  subjective  history  might  write  a  suf- 
ficiently crushing  dissertation. 

Many  histories  may  be  more  methodical  and  judicious, 
but  is  there  another  historian  endowed  with  Michelet's 
poetic  vision,  with  his  broad  grasp  of  human  motives,  his 
immortal  velocity  of  style  ?  Texts  do  not  say  everything ; 
often  they  do  not  say  the  important  things.  Like  the  moon 
at  night,  they  reveal  the  dim  silhouette  of  the  forest, 
leaving  it  for  the  inner  eye  to  figure  the  various  wealth 
of  foliage,  the  fresh  dewy  lawns,  the  glancing  colours  of 
the  birds  and  butterflies,  the  green  bracken  rustling  with 
living  things.  Yet  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  Michelet 
neglected  his  texts.  He  had  read  enormously,  especially 
in  mi^nuscript  material  \  s^ud  tb^  '  ^istory  of  th^  French 


THE    AMIR    OF    AFGHANISTAN  158 

there  is  no  other  man  Uving  who  could  have  written  the 
book,  who  could  be  animated  by  the  sentiments  expressed 
in  it»  or  who  would  have  dared  to  make  so  frank  a  confes- 
sion of  his  political  aims  and  intentions.  The  reason  for 
dwelling  with  so  much  emphasis  on  the  authority  of  the 
autobiography  is  that,  if  it  sincerely  expresses  the  views 
of  the  ruler  of  Afghanistan,  a  more  important  document 
has  seldom  if  ever  been  presented  to  the  consideration  of 
the  statesmen  and  people  of  this  country.  It  is  a  bold 
apx>eal  to  the  conscience  and  common  sense  of  the  British 
nation ;  an  attempt  to  prove  by  illustration,  by  argument 
and  by  the  too  often  neglected  lessons  of  experience,  that 
there  is  no  ally  whom  Great  Britain  can  discover  in 
Europe  or  Asia  more  likely  to  be  useful  to  her  than 
Afghanistan,  or  whose  interests  are  so  absolutely  and  in- 
evitably bound  up  with  her  own.  With  Afghanistan 
strong  and  in  friendly  alliance^  the  defence  of  India 
against  attack  would  be  an  easy  matter,  and  the  difficul- 
ties of  our  frontier  administration  would  disappear ;  while, 
should  we  allow  Afghanistan  to  be  hostile,  or  drive  her, 
by  ungenerous  treatment,  into  the  arms  of  Russia,  the 
security  of  our  military  position  would  be  endangered,  and 
the  finances  of  India  would  be  grievously  burdened  by  a 
vast  increase  in  our  military  expenditure. 

The  x>olicy  which  the  Amir  thus  advocates  is  that  which 
has  inspired  his  action  ever  since  he  ascended  the  throne. 
The  writer  of  this  article  has  been  thrown  into  intimate 
relations  with  the  Amir,  and  has  discussed  with  him,  at 
some  length,  the  great  questions  at  issue ;  and  he  can 
testify,  not  only  to  the  Amir's  sincerity  and  strength  of 
character,  but  to  the  fact  that  he  commenced  his  rule  with 
thefirm determination  to  be  a  friend  of  England, perceiving, 
from  the  very  fact  of  the  offer  to  him  of  the  throne,  that 
she  had  no  design  against  the  indei>endence  of  Afghan- 
istan. On  the  other  hand,  the  Amir  knew,  from  his  long 
residence  in  Russia  and  a  careful  study  of  its  i>olicy  in 
Asia,  that  alliance  with  Russia  signified  first  the  control 
and  then  the  absorption  of  Afghanistan.  The  events  of 
the  last  twenty  years  have  strengthened  the  confidence  of 
the  Amir  in  the  wisdom  of  the  policy  which  he  adopted. 
He  has  seen  Russia  advance  from  one  vantage  ground  to 
another,  until  her  progress  has  been  stayed  only  by  the 
delimitation  of  the  frontier — a  measure  which  was  un- 


154  THE   AMIR    OF    AFGHANISTAN 

fortunately  too  long  delayed.  From  time  to  time  he  has 
been  accused  of  frontier  intrigue  against  the  Britu^ 
Government ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that,  until  the 
Indian  frontier  was  definitely  laid  down,  the  Amir  and  the 
Indian  Government  were  in  constant  dispute  as  to  their 
respective  territories ;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  congratulation 
that  this  cause  of  quarrel  is  now  removed*  Even  so 
recently  as  the  last  Afridi  war,  the  Amir  was  accused  of 
allowing  his  soldiers,  and  even  officers,  to  assist  the  enemy ; 
but  in  times  of  excitement  such  accusations  are  lightly 
made,  and  his  stem  refusal  to  aid  or  countenance  the 
Afridi  deputations  who  visited  his  capital  showed  a 
spirit  thoroughly  friendly  to  Great  Britain.  When  his 
position,  as  the  ruler  of  a  democratic  and  fanatical  people 
in  strong  sympathy  with  their  Afridi  kinsmen,  is  con- 
sidered, it  will  be  understood  that  the  maintenance  of  so 
friendly  a  neutrality  was  extremely  difficult. 

Sir  Alfred  Lyall,  an  authority  second  to  none,  whose 
graceful  and  sympathetic  verses  are  more  than  once 
quoted  by  the  Amir,  is  reported  to  have  said  in  a  lecture 
delivered  on  the  31st  November  last,  that  he  saw  no 
solution  but  by  a  friendly  understanding  with  Russia  for 
the  complex  problems  which  lie  in  front  of  that  Power 
and  England  in  Asia.  If  he  had  then  read  the  Amir's 
autobiography  he  would  have  admitted  that,  at  any  rate, 
a  reasonable  solution  for  the  most  urgent  of  these  problems 
has  been  offered  by  a  ruler  whose  expression  of  opinion 
deserves  the  fullest  consideration.  No  statesman  can  deny 
that  a  friendly  understanding  with  Bussia  is  emineptly 
desirable;  and  this  the  Amir  fully  admits.  Neither  he  nor 
England  have  any  quarrel  with  Russia,  and  their  sincere 
desire  is  to  remain  on  the  best  of  terms  with  their  Northern 
neighbour.  This,  since  the  delimitation  of  the  Afghan 
boundary,  is  possible,  if  England  is  determined  to  observe 
the  promises  which  she  has  formally  given  to  the  Amir. 
But  it  would  be  to  ignore  the  obvious  lessons  of  experi* 
ence  to  suggest  that  a  friendly  understanding  with  Russia 
can  rest  on  any  other  basis  than  that  of  a  boundary  authori- 
tatively fixed,  the  infringement  of  which  would  be  at  once 
resented,  while  the  deliberate  occupation  of  any  important 
territory  situated  beyond  it  would  be  treated  as  an  act  of 
war.  If  Russia  thoroughly  realises  that  the  occupation  of 
Herat  would  be  treated  by  both  parties  in  England  in  the 


156  THE    AMIR    OF    AFGHANISTAN 

dangers  and  privations,  at  length  brought  Abdur  Rah* 
man  to  Samarkand,  where,  under  Russian  protection,  he 
remained  for  nearly  eleven  years.  He  was  treated  by  the 
Russians  with  consideration,  and  a  sufficient  allowance 
was  granted  him ;  but  he  was  still  a  state  prisoner  rather 
than  a  guest — a  hunting  leoi>ard  held  in  a  leash  till  such 
time  as  his  master  should  see  fit  to  slip  him  on  the  pre* 
destined  prey.  This  time  arrived  when  Sher  Ali,  incited 
by  the  Russians  to  quarrel  with  England  and  then 
abandoned  by  them,  had  been  driven  from  his  kingdom 
to  die,  a  broken-hearted  fugitive,  in  Balkh  ;  and  when  his 
son  and  successor  Yakub,  equally  treacherous  and  far  less 
competent,  had  been  deposed  and  deported  to  India  after 
the  murder  of  the  British  envoy.  Sir  Louis  Cavagnari, 
with  his  staff  and  escort,  in  the  Kabul  palace. 

The  Russian  authorities  then  decided  that  their  oppor- 
tunity had  come,  and  that  Abdur  Rahman,  with  his  ability 
and  great  military  reputation,  would  be  able  to  establish 
himself  in  Turkestan,  if  not  at  Kabul,  as  a  Russian  nominee, 
trained,  through  long  years  of  exile,  to  hear  through 
Russian  ears  and  see  through  Russian  eyes,  and  to  carry 
out  a  policy  in  Afghanistan  which  would  make  it  a  Russian 
province  like  Elhiva  or  Bokhara.  The  Russians  took  good 
care  to  remain  in  the  background  during  Abdur  Rahman's 
expedition.  They  had  no  desire  to  quarrel  with  England 
by  openly  backing  a  pretender  to  the  throne  of  a  country 
in  which  they  had  solenmly  renounced  the  right  to  inter- 
fere* So  they  gave  him  little  money  and  no  officers  or 
men.  He  was  despatched,  with  full  instructions  as  to  his 
conduct,  to  try  his  fortune,  Russia,  as  usual,  reserving  to 
herself  the  right  to  claim  the  stakes  without  risking  any- 
thing on  the  game.  But  Russian  policy,  which  is  much 
over-rated  in  England,  and  which  is  often  as  shortsighted 
as  it  is  unscrupulous,  had  entirely  miscalculated  the  char- 
acter of  Abdur  Rahman.  The  Russians  had  treated  him  at 
Samarkand  with  a  frankness  which  had  dispelled  many 
illusions*  Their  policy  in  Asia  was  familiar  to  him ;  and 
he  had  personally  witnessed  their  treachery  towards  those 
chiefs  who  had  trusted  them.  In  the  long  seclusion  of 
his  quiet  garden-house  at  Samarkand  he  had  come  to  the 
decision  that  whenever  his  chance  should  come,  he  would 
never,  voluntarily  and  with  his  eyes  open,  become  the 
servant  and  the  victim  of  Russia.    Between  England  and 


THE   AMIR   OF    AFGHANISTAN  16? 

Russia  he  knew  that  his  poor  country  was^  as  he  says 
himself,  like  a  goat  between  the  lion  and  the  bear ;  but, 
although  England  had  been  in  frequent  conflict  with 
Afghanistan,  he  realised  that  if  the  friendship  of  England 
were  granted  it  would  be  constant  and  sincere.  Whatever 
the  Continental  press  may  assert  of  English  policy,  in  Asia 
at  any  rate,  England  is  known  as  the  Power  which  adheres 
to  her  engagements. 

Abdur  Rahman  crossed  the  Oxus  determined  to  act  a 
part  which  he  carried  through  with  brilliancy  and  success, 
to  the  admiration  and  embarrassment  of  his  English  sup- 
porters, down  to  the  very  day  when  he  was  proclaimed 
Amir.  It  was  imperative  that  Russia  should  not  suspect 
that  he  was  not  her  dupe ;  and  the  fanatical  population 
of  Afghanistan  would  not  have  tolerated  him  if  he  had 
proclaimed  himself  on  the  side  of  the  infidels  who  were  in 
possession  of  the  country.  So  he  moved  into  Turkestan, 
the  God-appointed  leader  of  a  holy  war  against  the 
English,  with  whom  he  had  resolved,  if  possible,  to  come 
to  a  friendly  arrangement.  His  progress  was  slow  and 
hazardous,  but,  gaining  success  after  success,  he  attracted 
a  great  body  of  adherents,  disloyal,  turbulent,  and  ready, 
in  Afghan  fashion,  to  desert  him  on  the  first  reverse. 
After  winning  a  commanding  position  in  Turkestan,  he 
was  met  at  Khftnabad  by  two  members  of  the  personal 
staff  of  the  chief  political  officer  in  Kabul;  and  the  nego- 
tiations commenced  which  ended,  in  his  being  accepted 
as  Amir.  But  during  all  this  period  his  public  attitude 
never  varied  ;  the  comedy  was  strictly  played  to  the  final 
act.  It  was  only  after  the  interviews  with  Sir  Lepel 
Griffin  at  Zimma,  when  he  had  received  both  verbal  and 
written  assurances  of  the  support  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment in  money  and  material,  and  in  protection  against 
foreign  aggression,  that  his  attitude  changed  to  that  of 
the  cordial  friend  and  well-wisher.  He  at  once  under- 
took the  task  of  facilitating  .the  march  of  the  British 
armies  to  Kabul  and  Kandahar,  by  arrangements  with 
all  the  tribal  chiefs  on  the  line  of  march;  and  it  was 
largely  due  to  him,  as  he  justly  claims  in  his  book,  that 
these  important  military  operations  were  conducted  with- 
out a  single  hostile  shot  being  fired. 

The  selection  of  Abdur  Rahman  as  candidate  for  the 
throne  was  a  master-stroke,  for  which  Lord  Lytton  is  en- 


ARMY    Rfif^ORM  181 

This  frank  statement  of  fact  was  not  calculated  to 
allay  anxiety.  The  92,000  men  were  not  organised  in  any 
sense ;  but  were  for  the  most  i)art  youths  undergoing  ele- 
mentary training.  From  them  drafts  for  South  Africa 
were  made  up,  and  it  has  proved  necessary  to  send  out 
lads  imder  twenty  who  had  never  fired  a  rifle.  In  addi- 
tion, there  remained  at  home  sixty-eight  battalions  of 
Militia  under  strength,  indiflferently  trained,  without  trans- 
port, and  unprovided  with  field  artillery.  Finally,  there 
was  an  unorganised  mass  of  about  230,000  Volunteers  and 
Yeomanry,  totally  unfitted  to  undertake  field  operations. 
In  all,  there  remained  in  the  United  Kingdom  409,000 
nominal  effectives  of  various  designations ;  *  but  there 
was  no  field  force,  and  for  months  none  could  be  created. 
It  had  been  popxilarly  supposed  that  the  Militia,  Yeomanry, 
and  Volunteers  were  specially  maintained  for  what  has 
been  called  'home  defence,'  in  the  absence  of  regular 
troops.  This  condition  had  now  presented  itself,  and  it 
was  tardily  recog^sed  that  an  aggregate  of  battalions 
provided  with  rifles  and  uniforms  does  not  necessarily 
make  an  army. 

Spurred  by  public  opinion,  the  Government  at  length 
took  measures  which  were  severely  criticised.  Having 
sixty-eight  Militia  battalions  available  as  a  nucleus,  it  was 
evidently  desirable  to  fill  them  up  to  full  strength  of 
officers  and  men,  to  group  them  in  brigades,  and  to  put 
them  through  a  course  of  field  training.  Instead,  it  was 
decided  to  improvise  a  new  force  by  forming  cavalry  regi- 
ments and  infantry  battalions  of  soldiers  who  had  com- 
pleted their  period  of  army  engagement,  and  were  to  be 
induced  by  a  bounty  of  £21  to  serve  for  one  year  only  in 
this  country.  Officers  were  to  be  provided  from  the 
reserve  and  retired  lists.  A  more  costly  and  more  in- 
effective measure  could  not  have  been  devised.  The  emer- 
gency units  could  barely  be  made  effective,  as  units  only, 
before  they  were  doomed  to  disappear;  and  they  could  not 
supply  the  field  force  which  was  required.  At  the  same 
time,  a  portion  of  the  Volunteer  force  was  bribed  to  undergo 
a  short  period  of  training  with  a  view  to  qualify  them- 


*  In  addition  there  must  have  been  at  least  400,000  men  in  the  country 
who  had  served  in  one  or  other  of  our  numerous  military  forces,  and  w^^-^ 
physically  fit  for  service. 


ARMY    REFORM  188 

study  of  such  questions,  is  directly  responsible.  We  had 
an  Intelligence  Department  which  carefully  noted  the 
great  military  preparations  of  the  Boers  subsequent  to 
the  Baid ;  but  it  was  no  one's  business  to  study  the  re- 
quirements of  '  inevitable '  wars  or  to  tender  reasoned 
military  advice  to  the  Cabinet.  The  system  provided  no 
force  ready  for  embarkation,  and  the  want  was  inade- 
quately met  by  a  demand  upon  India  and  the  colonial 
garrisons,  and  by  a  misuse  of  the  Royal  Navy.  The 
mobilisation  proceeded  without  difficulty,  as  was  to  be 
expected ;  but  the  inherent  defects  in  our  military  system 
became  at  once  apparent,  and  large  numbers  of  nominally 
effective  soldiers  proved  unfit  for  a  campaign.  This  en- 
tailed the  depletion  of  the  so-called  reserves,  and  the 
disorganisation  of  the  MiUtia.  As  soon  as  the  effective 
portion  of  the  regular  army  had  been  embarked,  it  became 
apparent  that  the  forces  popularly  supposed  to  be  main- 
tained for  home  defence  were  not  equipped  or  organised 
for  the  purpose ;  and  further  improvisation,  costly  and  in- 
effective, was  hastily  adopted.  Lastly,  the  course  of  the 
campaign  quickly  proved  that  the  Army  had  not  been 
trained  for  war ;  that  some  of  the  commands  had  been  un- 
wisely bestowed;  and  that  the  huge  extemporised  staff 
was  in  some  cases  ill-qualified  for  the  discharge  of  its 
duties.  Here  were  many  of  the  elements  which  in  less 
favourable  conditions  would  have  caused  national  disaster. 
The  disabilities  of  the  enemy  and  the  inherent  fighting 
qualities  and  natural  adaptability  of  the  British  race 
enabled  the  situation  to  be  saved. 

(2.)  The  Causes. 

The  causes  which  have  produced  a  miUtary  system  per- 
meated by  gross  defects,  now  nakedly  exposed  to  the  gaze 
of  the  world,admit  of  easy  discrimination.  In  the  first  place, 
as  the  late  Commander-in-Chief  and  the  late  Adjutant- 
Greneral  have  publicly  intimated,  no  real  attempt  has  ever 
been  made  to  define  the  military  requirements  of  the 
nation,  and  to  build  up  an  organisation  fulfilling  those 
requirements.  For  thirty  years  the  Army  has  been  sub- 
jected to  a  process  of  tinkering  which  has  destroyed  all 
confidence  in  its  central  administration.  '  The  House  of 
Commons,'  writes  Mr  Amold-Forster,  *  has  never  refused 
to  grant  any  sum  of  money  for  the  services  of  th^  Arm 


ARMY    REFORM  185 

was  long,  inea49ured  by  Continental  standards,  and  it  was 
not  even  a  novelty.  Enlistments  for  seven  years  had 
been  tried  in  1806,  for  ten  years  in  1847,  and  for  two 
years  in  1854 ;  but  when  three  years  might  have  to  be 
deducted  from  the  period  of  eflFective  service  in  order  to 
allow  the  boy  to  grow  into  a  soldier,  it  is  evident  that  the 
essential  conditions  of  an  army,  of  which  one  half  was 
required  to  serve  abroad,  could  not  be  satisfactorily  ful- 
filled. It  would  be  unjust  not  to  admit  that  some  of  the 
minor  changes  inaug^urated  by  Mr  Cardwell  were  beneficial, 
or  that  a  portion  of  the  outcry  against  those  changes  may 
be  traced  to  the  prejudices  which  exist  in  armies  as  in 
other  corporate  bodies.  The  fact  remains,  that  the  so- 
called  Cardwell  system  was  radically  defective  in  prin- 
ciple, and  that  its  framers,  blinded  by  the  fascinations 
of  German  methods,  had  neglected  to  study  British  re- 
quirements. 

Mr  Kinglake,  the  most  scathing  critic  of  the  Depart- 
ments which  mal-administered  the  Army  in  1854,  freely 
admitted  that  *they  had  yet  upheld  in  full  vigour  our 
famous  time-honoured  "  regiments,"  with  the  glory  of  the 
great  days  yet  clinging  to  their  names,  their  traditions, 
their  colours.'  The  regiments  that  fought  at  Alma  and 
at  Inkerman  were  composed  of  grown  men,  and  were,  as 
regiments,  superb.  The  new  school,  which  began  to 
acquire  power  in  1870,  was  not  in  touch  with  the  regi- 
mental system  of  the  Army,  and,  as  soon  as  it  had  gained 
8u£Scient  strength,  it  proceeded  to  undermine  that  system. 
Its  schemes  having  at  length  given  rise  to  wide-spread 
and  weU-founded  dissatisfaction,  a  strong  committee  on 
Army  organisation,  presided  over  by  Lord  Airey,  was 
appointed  in  1879,  which  recorded  evidence  of  the  utmost 
importance.  The  dangerous  deterioration  of  the  physique 
of  the  Army  was  clearly  proved.  Some  regiments  sent 
to  the  Zulu  War  were  shown  to  be  quite  imfit  to  undergo 
the  stress  of  a  campaign,  even  after  discarding  hundreds 
of  their  young  recruits.  The  opinion  of  the  Indian  mili- 
tary authorities,  supported  by  statistics,  strongly  con- 
demned the  organisation ;  and  a  Minute  of  Council  of 
May  27th,  1879,  recorded  the  fact  that — 

*  The  state  of  the  2nd  battalion  6th  Regiment,  which  has  just 
landed  in  India  almost  bare  of  qualified  non-oo9HHN^oned 


ARMY    REFORM  187 

in  framing  their  schemes.*  Thus  a  clique  had  come  into 
existence  which  succeeded  in  securing  continuity  of  office 
for  its  members,  in  excluding  all  who  did  not  subscribe  to 
its  views,  and — ^for  some  years — in  making  eflfective  use 
of  the  press.  The  vicissitudes  of  the  Army  from  1870  to 
1884  are  traced  with  great  ability  by  the  author  of  •  Fifteen 
Years  of  "  Army  Reform,"  *  which  is  a  mine*  of  useful  in- 
formation for  all  who  desire  to  understand  the  causes  of 
our  present  military  difficulties.  This  little  book  is  a 
striking  record  of  ill-considered  changes  which  have  con- 
vulsed the  Army  without  producing  an  organisation  cap- 
able of  meeting  national  requirements.  The  apparent  in- 
tentions of  the  reformers  could  not  be  carried  out,  because 
they  either  violated  principles  or  failed  to  conform  to 
national  conditions.  Thus  the  Localisation  Scheme  of 
1873  was,  in  the  words  of  the  War  Office  Committee  which 
framed  it,  based  upon  a  '  calculation  * 

'that  100,000  male  population  should  furnish  a  MUitia  bat- 
talion of  1000;  and  as,  when  the  organisation  is  perfected, 
each  district  would  comprise  two  such  Militia  battalions,  the 
districts  have  been  divided  as  nearly  as  possible  so  as  to 
contain  each  about  200,000  males.' 

Since,  in  a  country  where  compulsory  service  does  not 
exist,  there  cannot  be  any  fixed  relation  between  the  popu- 
lation of  a  district  and  the  Militia  it  furnishes,  the  'organisa-  ' 
tion '  could  not  be  *  perfected,'  and  has  naturally  failed  to 
produce  the  exi>ected  results.  Again,  to  provide  drafts 
for  units  abroad,  it  was  decided  first  to  link  battalions 
together,  and  secondly  to  couple  them  permanently  into 
double  battalion  regiments,  abolishing  the  time-honoured 
numbers  and  introducing  a  variety  of  new  and  cumbrous 
titles  which  destroyed  the  continuity  of  the  military 
history  of  the  Army.  There  was  much  to  be  said  for 
cementing  the  county  associations  of  the  reghnents,  and 
this  object  could  have  been  attained  vdthout  outraging 
the  deep-rooted  sentiment  of  the  Army;  but  the  whole 
scheme  was  based  upon  a  fallacy.  Its  working  depended 
absolutely  upon  the  maintenance  of  equality  between  the 
units  at  home  and  abroad.    *  The  very  moment,'  said  Lord 

*  One  of  the  most  curious  festnres  of  the  endlees  eiM^lMB|Ml>  the  st^te 
of  the  Army  is  the  mass  of  eTidence  glvw^ail^  evident  ^^^nn  by  civil 
officials  ignorant  of  every  principle  of  miT^ 


ARMY    REFORM  189 

Committee  established  the  existence;  and  the  combination 
of  Militia  with  line  battalions  to  form  territorial  regiments 
proved  disastrous  to  the  Militia.  Meanwhile,  the  whole 
system  of  organisation  was  so  hopelessly  defective  that 
its  working  came  to  depend  upon  expedients  of  a  dis- 
integrating character.  To  enable  18,800  men  to  be  sent 
to  Egypt  in  1882  for  the  purpose  of  quelling  Arabics  re- 
bellion, 11,600  reserve  men  were  recalled  to  the  colours, 
and  more  than  10,500  actually  joined.  This  use  of  the 
reserve  for  a  purpose  for  which  it  was  not  intended  could 
only  tend  to  render  military  service  unpopular  with  the 
classes  that  supply  recruits.  At  the  same  time  the  practice 
of  drafting  men  from  one  unit  to  another  became  most 
undesirably  frequent.  Thus,  in  order  to  send  three  field 
batteries  to  South  Africa  in  1897,  no  less  than  189  men 
and  272  horses  had  to  be  obtained  by  denuding  other 
units ;  and  in  many  other  cases  drafting  was  freely  em- 
ployed on  a  large  scale.  The  inevitable  result  was  to 
destroy  esprit  de  corps.  Again,  units  have  frequently 
been  sent  abroad  considerably  under  strength  and  con- 
taining lads  supposed  to  be  twenty,  but  not  nineteen. 
Lastly,  a  most  objectionable  habit  of  creating  special 
forces  by  collecting  men  from  many  regiments  to  form 
improvised  bodies  came  into  vogue.  Thus  the  'desert 
column,'  upon  which  aU  the  severe  fighting  fell  in  1885, 
was  skimmed  from  twenty-eight  regiments  and  battalions, 
and  cavalrymen  found  themselves  acting  in  an  infantry 
square.  Every  principle  of  military  organisation  was  thus 
violated,  and  at  Abu  E[lea  disaster  was  barely  averted. 
This  plan  of  constantly  taking  officers  and  men  away 
from  their  proper  duties  and  temporarily  associating  them 
for  special  objects  has  done  infinite  harm  to  the  Army. 

By  such  means  as  these  it  was  sought  to  cover  the  in- 
herent defects  in  our  military  system.  These  defects  were, 
however,  well  known  to  the  Army  outside  of  the  War 
Office ;  and  each  successive  enquiry  furnished  critics  with 
powerful  weapons  of  attack.  It  has  inevitably  followed 
that  for  years  our  organisation  has  been  the  subject  of 
heated  controversy,  injurious  to  the  moral  of  the  Army 
and  practically  futile,  till  1897,  when  Lord  Lansdowne 
made  some  considerable  concessions  to  the  critics.  During 
these  years  of  wordy  strife  much  has  been  done  to  improve 
the  position  of  the  soldier,  as  of  the  artisan.     There  ha^ 


ARMY    REFORM  191 

number  of  ineffective  soldiers  in  the  ranks  is  explained. 
It  is  not  necessary  or  desirable  to  revert  to  the  pre-Card^ 
wellian  system  of  engagements  ;  it  is  vital  to  reduce  the 
number  of  nominal  soldiers  with  the  colours  and  to  in* 
crease  the  efficiency  of  the  fighting  units. 

(3.)  Requisite  Reforrns. 

The  school  which  has  long  swayed  military  policy  at 
the  War  Office  has  shown  little  capacity  for  organisation. 
At  times  it  has  assured  us  that  the  state  of  the  Army 
approached  perfection ;  whenever  great  defects  became 
plainly  visible,  it  has  given  us  to  understand  that  its  powers 
were  inadequate  or  that  the  Treasury  was  to  blame.  As 
an  organising  ^nd  an  administering  head  the  War  Office 
has  failed.  It  has  lost  the  confidence  of  the  Army  and  of 
the  nation ;  it  needs,  as  Mr  Hanbury  has  pointedly  re- 
marked, *  to  be  sifted  out  from  top  to  bottom.'  A  War 
Office  constructed  upon  business  principles  can  alone  pro- 
vide an  army  organised  and  trained  for  war. 

In  conunon  with  the  military  forces,  the  War  Office  has 
been  subjected  to  incessant  changes,  apparently  made  to 
suit  the  tastes  or  the  ambitions  of  individuals  rather  than 
to  comply  with  the  principles  of  administration.  There  is 
neither  system  nor  due  definition  of  responsibility ;  medio- 
crity is  effectually  screened,  and  genius  can  have  no  play ; 
a  morbid  craze  for  the  assertion  of  power  over  the  most 
trivial  details  dominates  all  other  considerations.  Here  at 
least  we  might  with  advantage  have  borrowed  from  the 
Germans,  who  are  past-masters  in  the  art  of  decentralisa- 
tion. The  first  necessary  reform  is  to  transfer  from  the 
War  Office  to  the  officers  commanding  districts  and  gar- 
risons all  the  powers  which  these  officers  can  wield. 
Efficiency  should  be  ensured  by  inspection  and  audit,  in 
place  of  allowing  inefficiency  to  fiourish  under  cover  of 
volumes  of  minute  regulations  and  reams  of  futile  cor- 
respondence. '  Trust  much  and  expect  much'  should  be  the 
motto  of  a  reformed  War  Office,  as  it  is  that  of  all  well- 
administered  business  undertakings,  in  which,  as  in  the 
German  army,  incompetence  receives  short  shrift. 

The  work  of  a  War  Department  groups  itself  naturally 
under  five  heads,  three  military  and  two  civil.  The  former 
include :  (1)  Personnel^  including  training,  inspection,  dis- 
cipline^ and  recruiting;  (2)  Materiel,  including  military 


ARMY    REFORM  193 

dividuality  which  our  system  has  tended  to  extinguish. 
The  moral  of  an  army  depends  largely  upon  its  central 
administration,  which,  dispensing  all  honours  and  regu- 
lating all  promotion,  can  directly  encourage  or  repress  the 
qualities  which  confer  success  in  modem  war.  The  havoc 
among  the  War  Office  selections  for  commands,  great  and 
small,  which  the  present  campaign  has  necessitated,  will 
not  easily  be  forgotten. 

An  army  can  neither  organise  nor  train  itself ;  and  the 
more  power  is  centralised  in  a  single  headquarter  office 
absorbed  in  paper  transactions,  the  less  are  the  chances 
of  progress.  Constructive  suggestions  from  subordinate 
officers  are  snubbed  by  the  War  Office ;  consequently  a 
great  portion  of  the  intellectual  vigour  of  our  Army  is 
expended  upon  destructive  criticism.  Yet  at  the  present 
moment  it  is  constructive  proposals  that  are  urgently 
needed.  The  first  step  is  to  define  clearly  the  military  re- 
quirements of  the  country ;  the  second  is  to  ascertain  how 
these  requirements  can  be  effectively  and  economically 
fulfilled.  The  one  is  a  question  of  policy,  the  other  is  a 
matter  of  organisation  on  business  principles.  'Before  the 
military  authorities  are  called  upon  to  provide  an  army,' 
said  the  late  Commander-in-Chief,  •  they  ought  to  be  in- 
formed clearly  and  distinctly  what  kind  of  an  army  the 
country  wants.'  The  country  has,  however,  no  ideas  upon 
the  subject,  except  that  it  desires  adequate  security  at  a 
reasonable  cost»  and  that  it  is  conscious  of  inadequate  pre- 
parations and  large  expenditure.  Now  the  primary  object 
of  our  organisation  must  be  to  secure  the  means  of  carrying 
on  a  vigorously  offensive  war.  The  function  of  the  Navy 
in  regard  to  the  Empire  is  defensive — ^the  guardianship  of 
sea-communications.  The  fact  that  this  function  must  be 
discharged  by  an  energetic  offensive  does  not  affect  the 
general  proposition.  The  Army  is  the  national  weapon 
of  offence,  by  the  action  of  which  alone  decisive  results 
can  be  attained.  The  Peninsular  war,  the  Crimean  cam- 
paign, and  the  Spanish- American  war  are  instances  in 
point.  In  none  of  these  cases  could  an  effective  blow  have 
been  struck  without  offensive  military  action ;  but  that 
action  would  have  been  impossible  without  naval  guardian- 
ship. This  axiom  of  national  policy,  frequently  stated,  has 
been  practically  ignored  as  a  basis  of  military  organisa- 
Vol.  193.— iVb.  385.  o 


194  ARMY    REFORM 

tion.    It  is  effectively  presented  in  the  following  sentence 
taken  from  *  Army  Reorganisation ' : — 

*  Unless  we  make  preparation  for  such  an  offensive  as  will 
enable  us  to  guard  and  support  every  portion  of  our  Elmpire, 
and  organise  the  Army  with  a  view  to  its  working  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  forces  maintained  by  the  Colonies,  any  effort  at 
army  reform  will  fall  short  of  what  the  nation  requires.* 

To  defend  such  an  Empire  as  ours  it  is  necessary  to  be 
prepared  to  strike.  The  recognition  of  this  essential  need 
does  not  in  any  sense  imply  the  adoption  of  a  policy  of 
aggression,  which  is  foreign  to  our  instincts  as  a  commer- 
cial people.  It  is  simply  and  purely  a  principle  forced 
upon  us  by  national  conditions  and  by  the  whole  teaching 
of  history.  The  defensive  ideal  upheld  during  the  past 
forty  years  has  entailed  immense  waste  of  money,  has 
directly  led  to  a  neglect  of  the  Navy,  and  has  dangerously 
enfeebled  our  field  Army.  The  military  requirements 
indispensable  for  our  national  security  are  as  follows : — 

I.  To  maintain  in  full  efficiency  and  in  complete  readi- 
ness for  war  the  normal  garrisons  of  India,  of  the  colonial 
stations  serving  as  secondary  bases  for  the  Navy,  and  of 
Egypt. 

II.  To  provide  at  home  a  considerable  field  force  fully 
organised,  staffed,  and  equipx>ed,  and  ready  for  immediate 
embarkation  to  reinforce  India,  or  any  portion  of  the 
Empire,  or  to  serve  for  the  purpose  of  a  small  war. 

III.  To  provide  a  large  field  force  at  home  completely 
organised  and  equipped  and  capable  of  being  mobilised  in 
a  week  for  service  abroad  in  the  event  of  a  great  war. 

IV.  To  maintain  the  machinery  for  supplying  the 
wastage  of  war  in  the  forces  included  under  (I),  (IT), 
and  (HI). 

V.  To  create  a  territorial  army  organised  and  equipped 
for  home  defence,  capable  of  maintaining  public  confidence 
if  the  mass  of  the  regular  forces  are  serving  abroad,  and 
able  in  part  to  reinforce  the  army  abroad  if  the  circum- 
stances are  such  that  what  ia  called  'home  defence' 
becomes  a  minor  consideration. 

The  first  necessary  stijp  towards  military  reform  is  that 
the  Cabinet,  which  is  responsible  for  national  defence, 
should  formally  adopt  the  foregoing  definition  of  re- 
quirements.   The  next  step  is  to  evaluate  those  require- 


ARMY    REFORM  19 

the  Militia.    The  second-line  army  should  consist  of  not 
less  than  200,000  men,  who,  failing  the  application  of  the 
hallot,  must  he  obtained  by  adequate   payment.      The 
organisation  should  provide  (a)  a  field  force  of  not  less 
than  ten  divisions  complete  in  themselves  as  regards  in- 
fantry, field  artillery,  and  field  engineers,  and  (b)  a  seden- 
tary force,  infantry,  garrison  artillery,  and  engineers  told 
off  to  the  fortified  harbours  on  our  coast-line.    The  basis 
of  the  organisation  should  be  strictly  territorial ;  and,  as 
proposed  by  the  author  of  *Army  Reorganisation,'  the 
blighting  influence  of  centralisation  should  be  removed, 
BO  as  to  *  allow  the  Militia  to  resume  its  legitimate  place 
in  the  county,  and  to  ensure  the  civil  administration  of 
this  country  taking  an  interest  in  its  welfare.*    By  means 
of  a  retaining  fee,  coupled  with  the  condition  of  occasional 
drills,  a  real  Militia  Reserve  can  be  created,  not  to  fill  the 
ranks  on  mobilisation,  but  to  supply  wastage  in  war  or  to 
enable  additional  units  to  be  formed  in  case  of  great 
national  emergency.  While  the  Militia  field  army  is  main- 
tained for  purposes  of  home  defence  in  the  absence  of  the 
regular  forces,  it  should  be  able,  if  circumstances  permit, 
to  supplement  the  Army  in  any  part  of  the  world,  thus 
fulfilling  the  rdle  which  has  given  it  a  disting^shed  place 
in  our  military  history. 

The  function  of  the  Yeomanry  should  be  to  provide 
the  mounted  force  required  for  the  home  field-army.  This 
country  affords  little  scope  for  the  work  of  cavalry,  but 
is  admirably  adapted  to  the  employment  of  mounted 
infantry.  As  such,  therefore,  the  Yeomanry  should  be 
exclusively  trained,  intelligent  scouting  and  proficiency  in 
rifle  shooting  being  the  main  requirements.  The  establish- 
ment should  be  based  upon  that  of  the  territorial  army, 
each  division  of  which  should  have  its  quota  of  Yeomanry, 
leaving  a  balance  of  the  latter  capable  of  being  inde- 
pendently employed.  The  Yeomanry  should,  during  their 
period  of  training,  be  paid  at  a  rate  sufficient  to  enable 
the  necessary  establishment  to  be  maintained ;  and  a  small 
reserve  shoiild  be  formed. 

The  Volunteers  must  be  recognised  as  a  paid  force,  on 
condition  of  a  greatly  improved  standard  of  efficiency. 
The  present  establishment  should  be  reduced  by  one  half,  the 
object  being  to  allow  selection  in  recruiting,  so  as  to  obtain 
grown  men  of  good  physique.    A  force  which  cannot  be 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  NAPOLEON   205 

the  incidents  of  the  Cent  Jours — ^these  must  place  him 
among  the  immortals,  and  not  even  his  attitude  of '  Oh, 
what  a  good  boy  am  1 1 '  can  deprive  him  of  that  place. 

Of  recent  studies  in  EngUsh,  Lord  Bosebery's  mono- 
graph is  in  some  respects  far  the  most  striking,  though  it 
is  impossible  to  say  that  it  contains  much  that  is  new. 
Its  interest  is  mainly  subjective — a  statesman's  study  of 
a  statesman  and  soldier.  It  is  written  with  judgment, 
brilliance,  insight,  and  epigram.  It  paints  Napoleon  less 
vividly  than  his  surroundings;  the  great  man  himself 
is  somewhat  of  a  shadow  among  a  series  of  miniatures. 
But  the  artistic  effect  is  admirable.  The  impression  of 
Napoleon's  solitude,  and  of  the  immensity  of  his  fall,  is 
heightened  by  the  pettiness  of  the  persons  by  whom  he 
was  surrounded  and  the  meanness  of  the  squabbles  in 
which  he  was  involved.  Of  the  conduct  of  the  British 
Gk>vemment  towards  their  prisoner  we  shall  have  some- 
thing more  to  say  presently.  Professor  Sloane  is  an  im- 
partial— and,  we  fear  we  must  add,  a  somewhat  indigesti- 
ble— summariser  of  facts,  and  does  not  always  understand 
Napoleon's  character.  For  instance,  he  does  not  believe 
that  the  Emperor  really  intended  to  invade  England  in 
1803.  Yet  no  one  who  recalls  Napoleon's  extraordinary 
audacity,  his  gambling  spirit  and  his  belief  in  his  destiny, 
can  feel  serious  doubts  on  this  head.  Though  generally 
accurate  and  trustworthy.  Professor  Sloane's  work  is  dis- 
figured by  some  curious  mistakes ;  for  instance,  he  oft^ 
talks  of  shrapnel  in  the  French  battles,  though  shrapnel 
was  first  used  in  Wellington's  army  and  was  never  adopted 
by  Napoleon.  Judge  O'Connor  Morris,  in  his  book  on  the 
campaign  of  1815,  has  given  us  an  English  work  little  in- 
ferior to  Mr  Bopes's  learned  and  admirable  study ;  he  is, 
perhaps,  the  first  British  writer  to  do  full  justice  to  the 
Emperor.  Apparently  he  had  not  read  Gourgaud's  '  Sainte 
H^l^ne,'  which  would  have  helped  him  on  one  or  two  dis- 
puted points.  Lady  Malcolm's  St  Helena  diary  gives  in- 
formation on  the  relations  between  Napoleon  and  Sir 
Hudson  Lowe ;  while  the  Marquis  de  Montchenu's  reports 
tell  us  much  about  Gk>urgaud  and  his  doings. 

To  what  extent  do  these  works  throw  new  light  upon 
the  character  of  Napoleon?  It  should  be  remembered, 
especially  when  dealing  with  the  voluminous  St  Helena 
literature,  that  the  character  of  a  profoundly  impression- 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  NAPOLEON    207 

such  cases  he  had  knowledge  not  possessed  by  those  who 
tendered  the  advice. 

So,  too,  in  studying  a  great  and  exceptional  character, 
it  is  well  to  analyse  traits  which  at  first  sight  may  appear 
reprehensible.  Thus  Madame  de  Caulaincourt,  speaking 
to  Foy  in  1814  of  the  Emperor's  possible  return  and  its 
results,  said :  '  Oh,  you  will  see  that  he  will  pardon  aU  the 
world.  He  has  so  low  an  opinion  of  men  that  he  will 
regard  the  blackest  treason  and  the  vilest  cowardice  as 
simple  and  natural  actions.'*  Damning  evidence  of  brutal 
cynicism  this,  it  will  be  said,  coming  from  one  so  near  to 
and  so  familiar  with  Napoleon.  Yet  there  are  certain 
words  in  the  diary  of  another  great  man,  which  may,  per- 
haps, shed  a  light  upon  Napoleon's  inmost  thoughts,  and 
prove  that  the  cynicism  was  not  so  brutal  after  all. 

*  I  am  inclined,'  wrote  General  Gordon  in  Khartum,  *  (satani- 
cally  I  own)  to  distrust  everyone,  i.e,  1  trust  everyone.  I 
believe  that  circumstances  may  arise  when  self-interest  will 
almost  compel  your  nearest  relative  to  betray  you  to  some 
extent.    Man  is  an  essentially  treacherous  animal.' 

The  general  result  of  recent  Napoleonic  literature  is  to 
negative  the  darkest  conception  of  Napoleon's  character, 
that  conception  embodied  by  Lanf rey  in  a  work  reeking 
with  hatred  of  a  dynasty  which  he  personally  detested. 
No  sane  person  can  now  believe  that  Napoleon  delighted 
in  crime  or  in  wrong-doing.  Italian  he  was  in  tempera- 
ment ;  condottiere,  perhaps,  in  the  famous  phrase  appro- 
priated by  Taine  from  Stendhal's  arsenal,  yet  he  does  not 
reproduce  the  darker  features  of  Italian  medisevalism ; 
with  a  Corsican  passionateness,  betraying  him  at  times 
into  such  acts  of  violence  as  executing  the  Due  d'Enghien, 
and  kicking  Volney  in  the  stomach  for  one  of  those  phrases 
which  he  detested,  he  is  yet,  in  Lord  Rosebery's  words, 
'  not  so  black  as  he  has  been  painted.'  Seeley  and  Bopes 
have  pointed  out  that  the  condition  of  France  rendered 
CsBsarism  inevitable,  and  that  he  cannot  justly  be  accused 
of  the  offence  of  usurpati6n.  France  has  always  gravi- 
tated towards  a  more  or  less  despotic  form  of  monarchy ; 
and  the  permanence  of  the  present  Republic  has  been  due 
rather  to  the  absence  of  any  eligible  pretender  than  to 
any  deep  affection  for  Republican  institutions. 

*  '  Vie  MUitaire  du  G^ndral  Foy,'  25a 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  NAPOLEON    211 

Fouch4  the  most  sinister  personality  of  the  Napoleonic 
epoch.  It  is  probable,  too,  that  family  influence  was 
brought  to  bear  upon  him.  His  brothers,  from  motives 
of  ambition,  hoping  each  to  rule  the  new  acquisition,  were 
eager  to  see  the  Bourbons  deposed  and  Spain  brought 
under  the  influence  of  Napoleon.  Joseph,  for  all  his  dis- 
claimers later  in  life,  was  worrying  the  Emperor  to  give 
him  preferment.  But  it  is  a  perfectly  true  criticism  that 
these  subtle  influences  cannot  condone  Napoleon's  offence, 
though  they  may  extenuate  it.  There  are  times  when  the 
statesman,  if  he  be  true  to  himself  and  his  country,  must 
resist  the  impulsion  of  events  and  environment. 

Before  returning  the  flinal  verdict  upon  this,  as  upon 
every  other  of  Napoleon's  crimes,  recent  precedents  and 
the  nature  of  the  times  must  be  taken  into  consideration. 
In  dwelling  upon  the  lawlessness  of  Napoleon's  proceedings, 
contemporary  and  even  later  writers  have  been  too  ready 
to  forget  that  this  peculiar  lawlessness  did  not  originate 
with  him.  Louis  XIY's  seizures  of  Luxemburg,  Strassburg, 
and  other  places,  afford  an  eminent  example  of  violence 
and  x>6rfidy.  Frederick  the  Qreat's  invasion  of  Silesia  in 
profound  peace  was  a  piece  of  brigandage  as  bad  as  the 
treacherous  attack  on  Spain ;  the  partition  of  Poland  was 
as  indefensible  as  the  worst  of  Napoleon's  aggressions. 
Prussia,  Austria,  and  Russia  at  various  times  made  them- 
selves accomplices  in  Napoleon's  lawless  acts.  True,  no 
one  of  them  was  lawless  upon  so  gigantic  a  scale ;  but  that, 
if  we  may  guess  from  their  subsequent  history,  was  simply 
because  their  rulers  lacked  Napoleon's  energy  and  capacity. 
Nor  in  the  Napoleonic  diplomacy  was  there  anything 
worse  than  Bismarck's  ^re-insurance'  treaty,  which  German 
opinion  of  our  own  day  condones  and  justifies,  or  than 
the  attack  upon  Denmark  in  1864  and  the  subsequent 
manceuvres  by  which  Prussia  appropriated  the  spoil. 

In  the  same  way  the  outrage  upon  the  Due  d'Enghi^i 
may  at  least  be  paralleled.  It  was  really  no  worse  than 
the  murder  of  the  French  envoys  at  Rastatt ;  not  much 
worse  than  the  seizure  of  Lafayette — ^that  windbag  of 
whom  American  sentiment  has  made  a  hero — ^upon  neutral 
soil,  and  his  internment  in  an  Austrian  fortress.  Even  the 
hands  of  England  are  not  perfectly  clean.  If  our  authori- 
ties did  not  directly  assist  the  Royalist  plotters  against 
Napoleon's  life,  th'**'  -*  i-^-rf.  wiTilr^^i  at  their  noachinar 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  NAPOLEON   8» 

neither  Fleury  de  Chaboulon  nor  Monthokm,  both  of 
whom  were  in  attendance,  allude  to  the  incidents  On  the 
other  hand,  if  he  had  attempted  soicide  at  Fontainebleau, 
he  was  even  more  likely  to  repeat  the  attempt  when  his 
chances  were  still  more  desperate.  He  had  little  doubt 
as  to  what  would  have  happened  to  him  had  he  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  Bourbons  or  the  Prussians.  Bliicher, 
we  know,*  was  for  shooting  him  on  the  grave  of  the  Due 
d'Enghien ;  the  British  Government  openly  expressed  the 
hope  that  Louis  XYIII  would  hang  or  shoot  him;  and 
Louis  could  not  have  been  expected  to  show  any  compunc- 
tion. Napoleon  professed  to  believe  that  if  he  threw  him* 
self  on  the  mercy  of  the  British  he  would  be  allowed  tQ 
live  in  England ;  but  Lord  Bosebery  has  marshalled  the 
obvious  and  conclusive  objections  to  this,  and  they  must 
have  occurred  to  Napoleon.  Whatever  French  writers 
may  say,  there  was  nothing  treacherous  or  unjust  in 
sending  him  to  St  Helena.  Though  the  Allies  and  the 
French  Government  had  been  largely  responsible  for  the 
I'etum  from  Elba,  l^  withdrawing  his  allowance,  de- 
priving his  son  of  his  inheritance  in  Italy,  and  keeping  his 
wife  from  him,  that  return  had  shown  him  to  be  still 
possessed  of  boundless  daring  and  energy.  Mr  Bopes, 
whose  opinion  is  the  more  valuable  because  his  sympathies 
are  usually  with  Napoleon,  considers  that  Hhere  was 
really  nothing  else  to  do  with  him  than  to  consign  him  to 
some  distant  spot  from  which  he  would  be  unable  to 
escape.  For  this  purpose  St  Helena  was  no  doubt  as  good 
as  any  other  islsmd.' 

But,  St  Helena  having  been  selected  as  a  prison,  the 
British  Grovemment  might  have  been  more  merciful  to 
the  captive.  Lord  Rosebery  is  the  first  modem  ^^iter  to 
examine  exhaustively  the  evidence  as  to  the  Emperor's 
treatment ;  and  his  verdict  may  be  accepted  as  generally 
just.    The  gaoler  chosen,  Sir  Hudson  Lowe, 

'  was  a  narrow,  ignorant,  irritable  man,  without  a  vestige  of 
tact  or  sympathy.  "  His  manner,"  says  the  apologetic  Forsyth, 
'^  was  not  prepossessing,  even  in  the  judgment  of  favourable 
friends."  "  His  eye,"  said  Napoleon,  on  first  seeing  him,  **  is 
that  of  a  hyeena  caught  in  a  trap."  Lady  Granville,  who  saw 
him  two  years  after  he  had  left  Bt  Helena,  said  that  he  had 

X  ■■■  .  -_-  -  r-  -  m  ^T-         ■111  ■!         -Ill  fw-i-  -|-^^  -n-    -     mm      m  iii  iwiBiiii 

*  Muffling,  '  Passages  from  my  Life,*  274. 


280    THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  NAPOLEON 

the  oountenanoe  of  a  devil.  We  are  afraid  (says  Lord  Rose- 
bery)  that  we  must  add  that  he  was  not  what  we  should  call 
in  the  best  sense  a  gentleman.  .  .  .  Lowe  was  a  specdaUy  ill 
choice,  for  a  reason  external  to  hixnself .  He  had  commanded 
the  Gorsican  Rangers,  a  regiment  of  Napoleon's  subjects  and 
fellow-countrymen  in  arms  against  France,  and  therefore, 
from  that  sovereign's  point  of  view,  a  regiment  of  rebels  and 
deserters.' 

Such  is  Lord  Bosebery's  characterisation  of  the  man 
on  whom  depended  the  amenity  or  otherwise  of  Nai>oleon*8 
captivity.  The  instructions  g^ven  him  prove  that  the 
British  Ministry  had  no  wish  to  temper  the  sufferings  of 
the  fallen  Emperor.  Lord  Bosebery  comments  severely 
upon  the  withholding  of  the  title  of  Emperor,  and  the 
absurd  persistency  in  re-christening  the  captive  *  General 
Buonaparte,'pin-pricks  which  were  worthy  of  the  Bathursts 
and  Ldverpools  who  then  controlled  our  administration. 
Lowe  and  the  British  admiral  charged  with  taking  out 
Napoleon  pretended  indeed  not  to  know  who  was  meant 
by  '  the  Emperor ' — ^the  Emperor  with  whose  fame  Europe 
had  been  ringing  for  the  past  ten  years  I  One  can  under- 
stand how  galling  this  solemn  fooling  must  have  been  to 
Napoleon  and  his  companions.  A  parvenu,  he  clung  patheti- 
cally to  his  dignity,  and  no  possible  harm  could  have  been 
done  by  giving  him  at  least  the  title  of  Ex-Emperor. 

A  second  point  in  which  the  British  Gk>vemment  was 
ungenerous  was  in  the  money  allowance  for  the  expenses 
of  the  Emperor's  household.  Everything  in  St  Helena 
was  four  times  as  dear  as  in  France  or  England,  and  80002. 
was  a  sum  on  which  a  household  of  fifty-one  persons,  ac- 
customed to  great  luxury,  could  not  exist  with  ordinary 
decency.  Napoleon  himself,  even  in  his  greatest  days, 
had  never  been  extravagant.  He  had  felt  the  bitterness 
of  extreme  poverty  in  his  youth,  and  he  was  again  to  ex- 
perience it  in  his  decline.  It  was  assumed  by  the  British 
at  the  time,  as  it  is  concluded  by  Lord  Bosebery,  that  he 
had  large  funds  at  his  own  disi>osal,  but  this  does  not 
really  seem  to  have  been  the  case.  There  was  a  deposit 
of  200,0002.  with  Lafitte,  the  Paris  banker ;  but  the  trouble 
was  to  get  at  it  without  revealing  its  existence  to  the 
Bourbon  Government,  which  would  certainly  have  laid 
hands  upon  it.  Moreover,  on  at  least  one  occasion,  as  we 
know  from  his  mother's  letters,  drafts  of  his  were  dis- 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  NAPOLEON   221 

honoured.*  A  sum  of  32,0002.  was  in  the  hands  of  Prince 
Eugene,  but  this  would  not  go  far.  The  family  of  Napoleon 
were  by  no  means  well  off,  and  they  were  hard  pressed  to 
find  anything  beyond  the  6,000Z.  a  year  which  the  Lafitte 
deposit  appears  to  have  yielded.  We  do  not,  then,  agree 
with  Lord  Rosebery  that  Napoleon  had  'ample  funds.* 
No  wonder  his  followers  found  it  extremely  hard  to  get 
money  out  of  him.  Oourgaud's  efforts  to  obtain  a  pension 
for  his  mother  run  through  a  whole  volume. 

Ultimately  the  Gk)vemment  saw  that  the  allowance  of 
8000Z.  was  too  small,  since  Lowe  could  never  actually  re- 
duce the  expenses  below  17,000Z.,  a  large  part  of  which 
was  provided  by  Napoleon  himself  and  his  followers.  The 
allowance  was  therefore  raised  to  12,000Z.  It  is  only  fair 
to  Sir  Hudson  to  say  that  he  made  strong  representations 
on  this  point,  and  took  a  considerable  risk  in  sanctioning 
an  expenditure  greater  than  the  Gk>vemment  had  fixed. 

A  third  grievance — and  a  legitimate  one — ^was  the 
manner  in  which  Napoleon  was  housed.  Longwood  was 
a  miserable,  rambling,  one-storied  building,  over-run  by 
rats,  and  with  little  accommodation.  It  was  hot  and  un- 
comfortable ;  its  environs  were  shadeless.  At  last,  after 
long  delay,  a  new  house  was  built  for  the  Emperor,  but  it 
was  not  ready  till  January  1821,  when  he  was  a  dying 
man  and  not  inclined  to  move.  The  mere  fact  that  the 
house  was  sent  out  from  England  and  erected  is,  however, 
evidence  that  the  complaints  of  Longwood  were  justified. 

The  fourth  grievance  of  the  Emperor  and  his  followers 
was  the  extreme  stringency  of  the  precautions  taken  to 
prevent  intercourse  with  the  outer  world  and  escape. 
Lord  Bosebery  holds  that  escape  was  impossible,  and  that 
more  freedom  might  have  been  allowed.  But  on  this 
point  it  is  difficult  to  pronounce  with  certainly.  There 
were  plots  to  rescue  the  Emperor,  though  possibly  not  of 
a  very  dangerous  nature. 

Far  more  serious  complaints  than  those  enumerated 
were  made  by  Napoleon's  followers  at  the  time.  It  was 
alleged  that  Sir  Hudson  Lowe  had  approached  CMeara, 
Napoleon's  Irish  surgeon,  with  the  suggestion  of  using 
poison.  The  charge  has  always  been  received  in  England 
with  angry  incredulity ;  and  it  used  to  be  said  by  the 

*  Laxrey,  'Mme  Mto,'  U,  221. 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  NAPOLEON   228 

faithful — and  this  when  there  was  no  longer  any  worldly 
advantage  to  be  gained  by  faithfulness.  'I  have  made 
courtiers,  not  friends/  he  said ;  but,  after  all,  in  what  rela- 
tion stand  Montholon  and  Bertrand  to  him,  if  not  in  that 
of  the  truest  and  bravest  of  friends  ?  His  mask  of  cynicism 
is  lifted  by  such  facts. 

On  his  public  character  the  course  of  history  has  pro- 
nounced sentence.  He  failed  and  brought  ruin  upon  his 
country,  yet,  as  we  have  seen,  largely  through  causes  which 
he  could  not  wholly  control — ^most  of  all,  perhaps,  the 
very  greatness  of  his  genius,  which,  whatever  the  status 
of  France,  must  always  have  rendered  him  dangerous  to 
the  neighbouring  Powers.  He  stimulated  the  very  forces 
which  were  to  be  most  fatal  to  France — the  sense  of 
nationality  in  Italy  and  Germany,  and  the  growth  of  the 
colonial  Empire  of  England.  But  it  was  his  work  to  clear 
the  ground  for  the  new  edifices  of  the  century.  In  this 
sense  he  was,  to  use  Lord  Bosebery's  phrase, '  the  scaven- 
ger of  God.'  His  iron  impact  made  Germany  what  she  has 
become  in  our  time ;  and  everywhere  on  the  Continent 
his  was  eventually  a  revivifying  influence.  Nothing,  where 
he  had  passed,  was  as  it  was  before. 

Was  he  a  good  man  ?  asks  Lord  Bosebery,  dubiously : 
and  he  answers,  though  reluctantly,  in  the  affirmative. 
Morally  good,  as  the  saints  have  understood  the  phrase, 
he  was  not.  But  he  was  unmoral  rather  than  immoral, 
and  unmoral  because  of  his  unhappy  environment.  He 
g^ew  up  in  an  age  when  religion  and  morality  were 
making  shipwreck  in  the  Bevolutionary  excesses ;  and  it 
is  small  wonder  that  he  was  Pagan  at  heart  in  his  earliest 
days.  Lord  Bosebery  has  traced  in  his  character  the 
development  of  that  spirit  which  the  Greeks  called  £!)8p&9» 
and  for  which  we  have  no  precise  English  equivalent. 
But  he  adds  that  Napoleon, '  until  he  chose  to  make  a  demi- 
god of  himself  .  .  .  was  kind,  generous,  and  affectionate  ; 
at  any  rate  ...  he  W€W  certainly  not  the  reverse.'  Even 
so  measured  a  panegyric  may  surprise  his  detractors ; 
but  the  latest  evidence  on  Napoleon's  character  convinces 
us  that  Lord  Bosebery  errs,  if  in  any  direction,  upon  the 
safe  side. 


THE    SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA    225 

determine  the  prox)ortions  chargeable  to  each.  That  the 
position  of  Great  Britain  in  South  Africa  was  challenged 
by  the  two  Republics  is  now  acknowledged  upon  all  sides ; 
and  that  the  possession  at  lea^t  of  the  Cape  is  vital  to  the 
Empire  needs  no  profound  study  of  geography  to  appre- 
ciate. Was  the  war  waged  to  remedy  the  Uitlanders' 
grievances,  or  to  wrest  the  rich  gold-fields  from  the  Trans- 
vaal, or  to  defend  our  general  rights  as  paramount  Power, 
from  which  the  loss  or  retention  of  the  Cape  is  certainly 
inseparable  ? 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  answering  this  question.  Mr 
Elruger's  ultimatum  was  the  natural  outcome  of  a  succes- 
sion of  events  which  made  a  struggle  for  supremacy  m- 
evitable.  Upon  this  ground  the  bill  should  be  entirely 
paid  by  this  country.  But  there  are  other  considerations. 
We  have  occupied  the  territory  of  the  Boer  Republics,  and 
we  have  taken  possession  of  what  their  Governments  have 
left  118  as  State  property.  We  step,  in  fact,  into  their 
shoes,  and  we  are  entitled  to  make  the  most  we  can  out 
of  the  assets  that  accrue  to  us.  There  is  a  vast  difiPerence 
between  turning  these  to  the  most  profitable  account,  and 
making  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  feel  the  iron  heel 
of  the  conqueror.  Had  we  restored  the  Transvaal  and 
the  Orange  Free  State  to  the  Boers,  we  should  have  been 
justified  in  exacting  an  indemnity ;  but,  as  we  have  an- 
nexed those  States,  our  position  is  altered.  It  may  be 
urged  that,  since  the  inhabitants  would  have  had  to  pay 
an  indenmityhad  Presidents  Kruger  and  Steyn  been  rein- 
stated, they  may  with  equal  justice  be  made  to  pay  now. 
But,  in  that  case,  the  citizens  would  have  had  the  State 
proi)erty  to  draw  on  for  the  indemnity,  whereas  now  it 
has  become  an  Imperial  asset. 

There  are  strong  grounds,  however,  which  warrant  our 
placing  a  share  of  the  cost  of  the  war  on  the  taxpayers  of 
the  Transvaal.  The  Uitlanders  are  to  be  freed  from  in- 
dignities and  oppression  ;  the  waste  of  treasure,  amount- 
ing approximately  to  2,000,0002.  per  annum,  in  secret 
service,  armaments,  &c.,  will  cease ;  the  restrictive  policy 
that  obtained  under  the  Kruger  rigime^  which  crippled 
industrial  and  mining  operations  with  a  view  to  limiting 
the  foreign  population,  will  disappear;  and  the  fullest 
development  of  the  resources  of  the  country  will  be  en- 
couraged. But  the  contribution  to  be  paid,  in  considera- 
VoL  188.-^0.  386.  Q 


280    THE   SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA 

But»  thirdly,  good  govemment  will  ultimately  prove  of 
immense  commercial  benefit  to  Bouth  Africa,  and  a  great 
saving  in  the  cost  of  loans  may  be  effected  by  a  judicious 
use^^of  the' iMp^Hat:  Credits'  thefdtdx^  Sdtlth' Africa  ^oidd 
CQhtribute  a  rettdona^le'  Bfaare  of  tiie'  expense. 

Sentimental  or  moral  benefit  can  hardly  be  translated 
into  money  value,  so  the  share  of  South  Africa's  profit 
that  is  claiined  as  a  contributic»i'  towards  expenses  can  bo 
claimed  only  on  commercial  grounds.  The  gentlemen  en- 
trusted with  the  investigation  into  the  financial  outlook 
in  South  Africa,  with  a  view  to  determining  the  respective 
shares  of  expense  to  be  drawn  from  the  different  portions 
of  that  country,  should  keep  in  mind  as  a  guiding  principle 
not  only  the  claims  of  Great  Britain  but  the  progressive 
future  of  South  Africa.  The  problem  is  complex.  Upon 
its  solution  depend  the  future  relations  of  South  Afirica 
with  this  country,  and  the  question  whether  that  sub- 
continent is  or  is  not  to  absorb  a  great  proportion  of  our 
surplus  population  and  of  our  trade — ^in  fact,  whether  we 
are  to  lay  the  foundation  for  the  building  up  of  a  great 
nation  of  South  Africans  in  sympathy  with,  or  in  oppo- 
sition to,  the  mother  country.  A  share  of  the  burden 
can  no  doubt  be  borne  by  South  Africa  without  stunting 
the  growth  of  good  feeling  towards  Great  Britain,  if  its 
weight  be  determined  with  judgment,  and  the  strong 
arm  of  our  national  credit  be  made  available  to  support 
the  younger  land  until  it  has  grown  strong  enough  to 
stand  alone. 

Irresponsible  persons  who  talk  glibly  about  making 
the  Transvaal  mine-owners  pay  for  the  war  do  not  realise 
that  the  prosperity  of  South  Africa  depends  almost  en- 
tirely upon  the  success  of  the  mining  industry,  which 
cannot  be  crippled  without  detriment  to  the  whole  country ; 
and  moreover  it  should  be  remembered  that  any  action 
which  hampers  the  general  development  hits  the  bulk  of 
the  population,  which  is  poor,  much  harder  than  the 
capitalists  at  whom  it  would  be  aimed,  with  the  disastrous 
consequence  of  creating  a  hostile  British  as  well  as  a 
hostile  Dutch  population.  Any  such  insane  policy  would 
be  sacrificing  the  hard-earned  fruits  of  victory — ^nay,  would 
infallibly  produce  a  repetition  of  the  gruesome  spectacle 
now  drawing  to  a  close,  or  even  a  secession  of  the  South 
African  colonies  from  the  Empire. 


THE   SETTLEMENT    OF   SOUTH    AFRICA    288 

treated,  taking  all  the  circumstances  into  account.  If 
interest  and  redemption  of  this  sum  are  reckoned  at  3^ 
I>er  cent.,  this  would  involve  an  annual  payment  of 
290,024Z.  The  yearly  profits  of  the  Company  amounted 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  to  about  1,500,0002.,  out  of 
which  debenture  holders  akid  shareholders  were  first  paid 
the  guaranteed  interest,  while*  85  per  cent,  of  the  balance 
went  to  the  Transvaal  Government,  and  the  remainder 
was  divided  between  the  shareholders  and  the  manage- 
ment. Mr  Kruger's  Gk>vemment  owned  5,788  of  the 
14,000  shares  issued,  and  these  have  become  an  asset  of 
the  Imperial  Government.  According  to  official  accoimts 
the  Government  received  in  1897  737,3662.,  and  in  1898 
668,9512.,  as  its  85  per  cent,  of  surplus  profits.  The  divi- 
dends which  accrued  upon  the  5788  shares  are  probably 
included  in  the  Interest  Account,  and  amounted  roughly 
to  from  50,0002.  to  60,0002.  in  1898  (see  note  on  p.  239). 

Assuming  that,  when  peace  is  restored  and  work  fully 
resumed,  the  volume  of  trade  and  the  railway  rates  will 
be  the  same  as  before  the  war,  and  leaving  out  of  ac- 
count that  exi>ansion  of  commerce  which  it  is  hoped  that 
annexation  will  produce,  the  annual  profit  of  1,500,0002. 
would  accrue  to  the  British  Government,  as  against  a 
liability  of  290,0242.,*  leaving  a  net  income,  beyond  what 
the  Transvaal  Gk>vemment  derived  from  this  source,  of 
over  500,0002. — a  valuable  aid  towards  financing  the  new 
Crown  Colony.  That  the  British  Government  should  ac- 
quire the  railway  and  hold  it  as  it  were  in  trust  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Transvaal  in  some  form  is  of  great  import- 
ance, for  the  railway  not  only  provides  a  weapon  to 
control  the  finances  of  that  country,  but  can  be  used 
as  a  powerful  lever  in  dealing  with  the  neighbouring 
colonies. 

It  is  evident  that  the  railway  has  been  extravagantly 
run,  and  a  capable  general  manager  will  no  doubt  succeed 
in  reducing  the  cost  of  working  the  line  to  less  than  50 
per  cent,  of  the  gpross  earnings,  the  proportion  at  which 
it  stood,  roughly  speaking,  in  1899.  The  following  table 
gives  an  interesting  comparison  between  some  of  the 
systems  working  in  South  Africa. 

*  Of  this  sum,  16,7002.  (roughly)  would  be  lefunded  on  account  of  the 
5,788  shares  held  by  the  late  Government. 


234    THE    SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA 


Pbopobtion  of  Wobking  Costs  to  Gross  Rbvbnub.* 


Netherlands  Railway    . 
Gape  Govenunent  Hallways  . 
Natal  Govemment  Railway  . 


1800. 

I    ■    n 


Percent. 
49-91 

65-5 


1808k 


Percent^. 
51-46 

G8-1 

50-79 


1807. 


FtfCent 
50-4a 

61-8 

55-40 


COMPARATIVK  RKVKHUK  AitD  EXFKNUITUKK  PKK  T&AUf  Mu 

.B. 

Setenne  perTkmIn  Mile. 

Ooita  per  Train  MUe. 

laooi 

1806. 

1807. 

1800.           1808. 

1807. 

Netherlands  Railway 

Cape     Government^ 
Railways     ,        ./ 

Natal    Govemment\ 
Railway       .         ./ 

ff.     d. 

13    9 

7    0 

•  • 

ff.     d. 
13    5 

6  7 

7  2 

ff.     d. 

15     0 

6  11 

8    8 

ff.    d. 
6  10 

4    7 

•  • 

f .    d. 
6  10 

4    6 
4    3 

ff.     d. 

7    5 

4    3 
4  10 

Most  of  the  trains  entering  the  Transvaal  pass  over  the 
Cape  and  Natal  systems,  and  before  crossing  the  border 
are  raised  3,988  feet  and  5,433  feet  respectively  above  sea 
level,  the  remainder  of  the  journey  being  over  a  compara- 
tively flat  country.  Only  in  the  case  of  trains  coming 
from  Delagoa  Bay  are  the  loads  raised  to  the  high  plateau 
after  entering  the  Transvaal ;  so  the  working  costs  of  the 
Netherlands  Company  should  upon  this  ground  alone  have 
been  lower  than  those  of  the  Cape  and  Natal,  apart  from 
the  fact  that  the  situation  of  the  coal  mines  is  all  in  favour 
of  the  Dutch  Company.  There  would  appear  to  have 
been  grave  mismanagement  when  in  such  circumstances 
an  expenditure  of  6^.  lOd.  out  of  a  revenue  of  139.  9d,  per 
train  mile  occurred,  as  against  an  expenditure  of  49.  Id. 
out  of  a  revenue  of  7^.  per  train  mile  on  the  Cape  system. 

The  dynamite  monopoly  originally  came  into  existence 
as  a  concession  granted  to  certain  persons  for  the  manu- 
facture and  sale  of  explosives  in  the  Transvaal.  The 
mining  industry  was  from  the  first  strongly  opposed  to 
the  concession,  on  the  ground  that,  while  the  State's  pro- 
portion of  profit  was  ridiculously  small,  the  price  charged 


*  These  figures  are  taken  from  official  reports. 


YHfe   SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH.  AFRICA    235 

for  the  explosives  supplied  to  the  mines  was  vastly  in 
excess  of  the  price  at  which  they  could  have  been  im- 
ported from  Europe,  and  a  heavy  tax  was  thus  imposed 
on  the  mines  for  the  benefit  of  foreign  concessionnaires. 
The  provisions  of  the  concession  were  proved  to  have  been 
flagrantly  contravened,  and  after  some  years  of  agitation 
it  w£is  in  consequence  cancelled.  Only  a  very  short  time 
elapsed,  however,  before  the  concession  was  revived  under 
the  title  of  a;  State  monopoly  in  explosives,  which  under 
another  guise  placed  the  trade  again  in  the  hands  of  the  old 
concessionnaires,  upon  terms  which  were  in  some  respects 
even  better  than  those  of  the  original  concession.  The 
British  Qovemment  protested  against  the  so-called  State 
monopoly,  as  being  a  breach  of  the  London  Convention ; 
and  it  would  seem  reasonable  therefore  that,  having  be- 
come masters  of  the  country,  they  should  now  cancel  it. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  enter  into  details  as  to  the  form  in 
which  this  should  be  accomplished,  whether  by  a  formal 
cancellation  of  the  monopoly  or  by  simply  throwing  open 
the  trade  in  explosives  under  certain  conditions.  In  any 
case,  without  prejudicing  the  mining  industry,  a  sum  of 
about  half  a  million  sterling  a  year  might  be  added  to 
the  receipts  of  the  country  by  imposing  a  tax  of  twenty 
shillings  upon  every  case  of  exploi^ives  used.  Assuming 
the  monopoly  to  have  been  cancelled,  the  charge  of  twenty 
shillings  a  case  should  be  levied  not  only  upon  all  ex- 
plosives imported  into  the  country,  but  also  on  those 
manufactured  within  its  boundaries.  The  land  and  sea 
carriage  of  the  bulky  materials  used  in  the  manufacture 
of  dynamite  costs  three  times  as  much  as  the  carriage  of 
the  manufactured  article;  whence  it  may  clearly  be  in- 
ferred that  cheapness  was  not  the  object  of  establishing  a 
factory  in  the  Transvaal. 

Some  prominence  has  recently  been  given  to  the 
beuHxarpkuitaen,  the  right  of  mining  under  which  is  gener- 
ally regarded  as  having  belonged  to  the  Transvaal  Govern- 
ment. A  good  deal  of  misconception  exists  both  as  to 
the  nature  and  value  of  these  areas.  When  the  working 
of  the  Witwatersrand  gold  reefs  began,  a  digger  could 
procure  either  what  was  known  as  a  digger's  licence  or  a 
prospector's  licence.  It  id  unnecessary  to  define  the  distinc- 
tion between  these  two  licences  further  than  to  state  that 
the  former  was  much  more  costly  than  the  latter,  and  was 


THE   SETTLEMENT   OF    SOUTH   AFRICA    287 

these  areas.  It  may  be  definitely  stated  that,  with  very 
few  exceptions,  the  betoaarplaatsen  cannot  be  worked  at 
a  profit  except  by  the  companies  whose  ground  is  adjoin- 
ing, for  the  simple  reason  that  the  quantity  of  ore  con- 
tained within  the  areas  is  insufficient  to  pay  for  separate 
working ;  and  it  may  further  be  definitely  stated  that  the 
whole  of  the  beiocuirplcuxtaen  are  not  worth  more  than  a 
million  sterling.  To  those  familiar  with  the  subject,  the 
visionary  value  recently  placed  upon  the  bewaarplacUaen 
is  ludicrous.  Should  the  British  Government  decide  to 
sell  these  areas,  they  will  no  doubt  employ  competent 
engineers  to  report  upon  their  value ;  and  it  will  then  be 
found  that  the  estimate  given  here  is  not  unreasonable. 

Finally,  amongst  the  assets  to  which  the  British  Govern- 
ment succeeds  must  be  reckoned  the  unallotted  lands  in 
the  Transvaal.  No  estimate  can  yet  be  formed  of  the  value 
of  these  unoccupied  areas,  which,  from  an  agricultural  or 
pastoral  standpoint,  cannot  be  of  great  importance,  or 
they  would  not  have  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  State. 
But  in  such  a  highly  mineralised  and  so  imperfectly  pro- 
spected a  country,  discoveries  may  at  any  time  be  made, 
in  consequence  of  which  a  large  and  prosperous  population 
may  be  able  to  settle  upon  these  untenanted  wastes. 

A  few  years  ago  the  greater  part  of  South  Africa  was  in 
this  desolate  condition.  Although  we  have  had  a  foothold 
in  the  coimtry  for  the  best  part  of  a  century,  no  develop- 
ment of  any  importance  took  place  until  the  diamond 
mines  attracted  a  young  and  enterprising  class  of  fortune- 
hunters.  Twenty-five  years  ago  the  railways,  which  now 
cover  a  distance  of  five  thousand  miles,  were  hardly  in 
existence ;  and  the  terminus  of  the  trunk  line,  now  being 
pushed  vigorously  on  towards  the  Victoria  Falls  on  the 
Zambezi  River,  was  at  a  little  village  called  Wellington, 
forty-five  miles  from  Cape  Town. 

The  gigantic  industrial  and  commercial  advance  of  the 
last  few  years  is  almost  entirely  due  to  the  mines,  and 
this  advance  has  largely  affected  agricultural  and  i>a8toral 
conditions,  through  the  enhanced  demand  for  produce  and 
the  consequent  rise  of  prices.  If  such  an  increase  has 
taken  place  under  the  unpropitious  conditions  hitherto 
existing,  it  may  be  confidently  expected  that  it  will  con- 
tinue under  British  government,  for  many  years  to  coma, 
fi,t  a  still  more  rajdd  rate.     The  conseiiquenoeis  to  agri^ 


288    THP    SETTf^EMENT  PF    SOy^TH   AFRICA  ' 

cultural  enterprise  must  be  far-reaching.  Lands  which 
could  not  be  profitably  worked,  undert^aJdngs  which  had 
no  chance  of  success,  in  former  day^,  ^^7  now  promise  a 
secure  return  to  investment.  A  generation  ago,  there 
was  neither  capital  in  the  colonial  treasuries  to  undertake 
public  works  on  a  large  scale — ^irrigation  ivorks,  for  in- 
stance— nor  a  demandf  or  agricultural  produce  which  would 
have  justified  such  expenditure.  This  is  the  case  no  longer ; 
and  prognostications  of  failure,  based  on  agricultural  diffi- 
culties which  were  mainly  due  to  bygone  conditions,  must 
therefore  be  largely  discounted.  Agricultural  prosperity, 
in  South  Africa,  depends  on  industrial  and  commercial 
progress  ;  and,  if  we  would  encourage  the  former,  we  must 
be  careful  to  foster,  at  all  events  not  to  hinder  by  excessive 
demands  and  restrictions,  the  latter. 

The  potentialities  of  South  Africa  are  appreciated  by 
few  in  this  country.  A  gold  output  of  twenty  millions 
sterling,  capable  of  great  increase  under  favourable  con- 
ditions, a  diamond  output  of  over  four  millions  sterling,  an 
unlimited  supply  of  coal  well  distributed  over  the  various 
divisions  of  the  country,  the  known  existence  of  a  quantity 
of  iron,  of  lead,  of  copper,  some  silver,  and  some  tin — the 
magnitude  of  which  has  yet  to  be  demonstrated — and 
possible  new  discoveries  in  many  as  yet  unprospected 
regions,  constitute  an  inducement  which  no  other  sparsely 
populated  portion  of  the  globe  can  offer  to  those  in  search 
of  fortune.  The  crying  needs  of  the  land,  which  has  prac- 
tically been  allowed  to  sleep  through  the  ages,  are  an 
energetic  population  and  a  good  government  willing  to 
lend  a  helping  hand  financially.  So  long  as  the  mines  ab- 
sorb all  the  available  private  capital^  the  State  must  assist 
agriculture.  Advances  made  judiciously,  under  the  advice 
and  control  of  a  body  of  experts  appointed  for  the  pur- 
pose, could  be  adequately  secured.  The  cheapening  of 
commodities  and  the  widening  of  the  field  of  labour  will 
be  one  of  the  chief  duties  of  Gk>vemment  in  South  Africa, 
and  one  by  which,  politically  and  commercially,  the 
position  of  the  Empire  may  be  indefinitely  strengthened. 


THE    SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA    239 

JVb^— NETHERLANDS  RAILWAY. 
Calculation  op  Cost  of  Expropriation  during  1901. 


£       8.    d. 
1897.    Dividend— 'A*  13  per  cent.     .        .        •  119,166  13    4 

*B*1H 
'A'llJ 


1898. 


1899. 


»i 


*B*10J 
'A' 121 
•B'll 


28,750  0  0 

107,708  6  8 

25,625  0  0 

114,588  6  8 

27,600  0  0 


Total,  three  years        •        •        .         £423,333    6    8 


Average  per  annum    .        •        .         £141,111    2    2-6 


141,im.  2a.  2-6c2.  X  20    ....         2,822,222    4    6 
Add  14  times  1  per  cent,  of  1,166,6662.  13^.  4€Z.  .  163,333    6    8 


£2,985,555  11  2 
Obligations  per  Balance  Sheet,  31/12/99  .  7,209,166  13  4 
Klerksdoip  Line  Loan     •        •        .        .  548,000    0    0 


£10,742,722    4    6 


To  the  above  sum  must  be  added  the  cost  of  liquidation  of  the  Company, 
payments  to  liquidators,  legal  expenses,  &c.,  involving  a  small  outlay  only. 
On  the  other  hand,  large  deductions  will  have  to  be  made  on  account  of 
damage  deliberately  done  to  railway  and  other  property  by  the  officials  or 
agents  of  the  Netherlands  Railway  Company. 

(II.)  Immigration^  Agriculture,  and  Irrigation. 

M.  Yves  Guyot,  the  able  editor  of  the  *Si6cle,'  in  his  book 
on  '  Boer  Politics/  attempts  to  bring  his  countrymen  into 
line  with  us  on  the  South  African  controversy,  by  pointing 
out  that  the  conflict  is  essentially  one  between  lower  and 
higher  types  of  civilisation.  By  following  the  history  of 
our  relations  with  the  Boer  Bepublics,  he  is  able  to  make 
an  eflFective  reply  to  an  article  by  Dr  Kuyper  in  the 
'  Bevue  des  Deux  Mondes/  and  to  show  that  our  action  is 
defensive  in  character  and  deserves  the  support  of  all 
lovers  of  liberty.  Amidst  the  storm  of  invective  and 
abuse  directed  against  us  from  the  Continent,  it  is  a 
pleasure  to  become  aware  that  so  influential  a  voice  as 
that  of  M.  Guyot  has  made  and  is  still  making  itself  heard 
in  support  of  our  action  ;  and  if  the  outcome  is  to  establish 
an  industrial  civilisation  of  a  higher  type  as  the  basis  of 
Africa's  regeneration,  even  those  amongst  us  who  oppose 
the  war  may  take  comfort. 


240    THE    SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA 

M.  Guyot*8  definition  of  the  issue  does  not  lighten  but 
increapses  the  burden  of  our  responsibility,  if  we  are  to 
deal  wisely  with  the  tangle  of  interests  thrust  into  our 
hands  by  President  Kruger  and  his  advisers.  Fortunately 
the  materials  for  a  correct  judgment  are  not  wanting : 
there  are  many  writers  on  the  South  African  theme  who 
are  more  or  less  trustworthy  contributors.  One  who 
claims  consideration  by  reason  of  his  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  subject,  and  his  temperate  handling  of  it,  is  Dr 
M.  J.  Farrelly,  who  has  Endeavoured  in  his  book,  'The 
Settlement  after  the  War  in  South  Africa,*  to  impress 
upon  us  the  necessity  of  finality  in  that  settlement.  He 
writes: — 

*  The  one  conclusion  which  Ib  borne  in  upon  the  mind  is  the 
necessity  of  a  final  settlement,  once  for  all,  of  the  question. 
Into  whose  hands  is  political  jx>wer  to  be  committed  ?  On  the 
answer  to  this  question  depends  the  whole  future  of  the  race 
in  South  Africa.  .  .  .  The  object  with  which  I  write,  therefore, 
is  to  show  that  above  and  beyond  the  rights  and  wrongs  of 
the  particular  issue  to  which  Boer  and  Briton  in  South  Africa 
are  committed,  finality  in  the  settlement  should  be  the  domi* 
nating  thought  in  the  minds  of  the  statesmen  who  will  have 
to  decide  when  the  cannon  is  silent — ^finality  imperatively  re* 
quired  to  further  the  mission  in  the  world  of  the  Buropean 
race, ...  to  promote  the  fusion  of  the  European  race  in  South 
Africa,  ...  to  ensure  the  elevation  ultimately,  and  in  the  pre- 
sent the  just  treatment,  of  the  subordinate  races.  .  .  .  That 
nothing  must  be  left  to  the  settlement  of  time  alone  in  this 
struggle  between  Imperial  British  and  Republican  Dutch  su- 
premacy is  the  one  g^reat  political  fact  which  I  purpose  to  make 
dear.* 

This  is  excellent  good  sense,  but  Dr  Farrelly*s  political 
remedies  do  not  strike  one  as  the  only  or  even  the  best 
means  for  solving  the  practical  dif&ctdties  of  the  situation. 
His  demonstration  of  the  Separatist  tendencies  of  Afri- 
kanderism  is  worthy  of  all  attention,  especially  on  account 
of  his  former  connexion  with  the  Transvaal  Government, 
though  he  hardly  gives  due  weight  and  prominence  to 
Boer  hostility  and  European  intrigue  as  contributory 
causes  of  the  war;  but  his  proposals  dealing  with  the 
future  settlement  will  not  cany  the  support  of  many  South 
Africans,  since  he  turns  to  the  old  and  discredited  safe- 
guaitU — constitutions,  systems  of  government,  Govemoo- 


THE    SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA    241 

Greneral,  Imperial  Councils,  and  other  political  machinery, 
which  has  broken  down  so  completely  in  the  past.  The 
object  being  to  obtain  a  higher  type  of  civilisation  or  a 
final  settlement,  how  can  these  be  secured  by  multiplying 
British  institutions,  British  Governors  and  British  colonies, 
if  the  people  themselves  are  not  British  ?  Finality,  recog- 
nised on  all  sides  as  absolutely  necessary,  will  be  obtained 
only  when  South  Africa  is  mainly  British  and  not  Dutch ; 
and  by  British  we  mean  British  by  blood  and  not  by  legal 
fiction.  Dr  Farrelly  is  wholly  right  when  he  distinguishes 
so  carefully,  in  the  paragraph  we  have  quoted,  between  the 
Imperial  British  and  the  Bepublican  Dutch.  After  the  war, 
the  British  will  remain  supporters  of  the  British  Empire ; 
the  Dutch  will  remain  supporters  of  their  suppressed  Re- 
publics. A  fairly  intimate  knowledge  of  our  incomparable 
British  constitution  and  British  ideas  of  liberty  did  not  con- 
vert the  Smuts,  Esselens,  and  other  university  graduates, 
who  began  life  as  subjects  of  the  Queen,  into  enthusiastic 
supporters  of  the  British  flag  in  South  Africa.  The  closer 
their  acquaintance  with  our  'higher  tyi>e,'  the  greater 
their  hostility ;  and  what  has  happened  in  the  past  will 
hapi)en  in  the  future,  clemency  and  self-government  not- 
withstanding. The  steady  trend  towards  secession  will 
continue,  and  will  be  heartily,  if  secretly,  assisted  by  the 
Sauers,  Moltenos,  Hofmeyrs,  and  other  half-foreigfn  poli- 
ticians elected  to  rule  over  our  colonies. 

In  a  published  address  to  the  women  of  South  Africa 
their  interpreter  and  mouthpiece,  Olive  Schreiner,  wrote 
lately : — 

*  I  know  not  how  it  is  with  any  of  you,  but  for  myself  person- 
ally, as  long  as  I  live,  whenever  I  look  into  the  recesses  of  my 
own  heart,  I  shall  always  see  there  waving  free  the  gallant 
flags  of  those  two  little  Republics,  said  to  have  been  furled  for 
ever,  enshrined  there  in  my  sympathies  and  affections.  And 
if  there  be  in  South  Africa  another  two  hundred  thousand 
hearts  in  which  those  flags  are  enshrined,  then  I  know  the  day 
will  come  when  hands  will  rise  which  will  in  actuality  unfurl 
them,  and  they  will  float  free  across  South  Africa.  We  may 
not  live  to  see  it ;  many  of  us  may  go  down  amid  tears  and 
blood  and  sorrow  to  our  graves,  but  the  future  is  with  the 
Republicans.  .  .  .  The  future  is  ours.  Let  us,  the  women  of 
South  Africa,  keep  our  eyes  steadily  ^ed  on  it,  «^ii^  laboiur 
fordt.*  ...  ... 

VoL  IOS.—N0.  385,  R 


THE    SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA    243 

and  the  remainder  will  be  foreigners.  Natural  increase  will 
double  these  numbers  in  twenty-five  years  and  give  the 
elements  antagonistic  to  us  a  gradually  increasing  numeric 
cal  majority.  Thus  we  shall  lose  South  Africa  unless  we 
can  by  immig^tion  increase  the  number  of  our  own  people 
and  ensure  a  continuance  of  that  liberal  and  progressive 
legislation  which  alone  can  promote  an  influx  of  men  and 
money  into  the  country.  We  cannot  afford  to  lose  the 
control  of  the  ballot-box,  which  will  be  the  chief  agency  by 
which  the  silent  struggle  soon  to  be  entered  upon  will  be 
decided.  Whether  the  Cape  Treason  Bill,  by  which  a 
number  of  Dutch  voters  will  be  disfranchised  for  a  period 
of  five  years,  will  suffice  to  retain  the  Liberal  party  in 
power  is  a  matter  of  doubt.  It  may  be  that  even  so  early 
as  next  year  the  largest  and  most  important  member  of  the 
proposed  South  African  Federation — the  Cape  Colony — 
will  fall  again  under  Dutch  dominance,  and  thereby  add 
greatly  to  the  difficulties  of  the  situation.  Indirect  legis- 
lation will  be  the  weapon  employed,  in  the  future  as  in 
the  past,  to  check  the  too  rapid  increase  of  the  Uitlander 
in  the  Cape  Colony.  The  scab  insect  in  sheep,  phylloxera 
in  the  vines,  locusts  everywhere  —  these  are  strange 
weapons  to  employ  against  Anglo-Saxon  expansion.  But 
President  Kruger,  whose  direct  action  was  hampered  by 
the  Conventions,  has  given  South  African  politicians  some 
useful  lessons  in  indirect  obstructive  tactics ;  and  even  the 
insect  plagues  of  South  Africa  are  useful  auxiliaries  when 
the  advent  of  white  farmers  threatens  to  disturb  the 
political  balance.  Afrikanderism  can  exist  only  by  preserv- 
ing its  isolation.  This  truth  was  thoroughly  understood  by 
politicians  like  President  Ejpuger  and  Mr  Hofmeyr.  When 
the  census  results  are  published  even  the  politicians  of  the 
Karoo  will  comprehend  it,  and  will,  while  voting  money 
for  Imperial  battleships,  oppose  obstacles  to  immigration — 
such  for  example  as  heavy  taxes  on  joint-stock  companies, 
which,  by  promoting  the  development  of  the  country, 
are  stronger  supporters  of  British  power  than  even  the 
navy.  Against  *  slimness '  of  this  kind,  awakened  by  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  mere  political  safeguards  will 
prove  worse  than  valueless,  for  they  will  serve  only  to 
conceal  the  truth  and  will  lull  to  a  false  security  just  when 
vigilance  is  most  needed.  Those  who  believe  otherwise  do 
not  know  the  slow-thinking  conservative  Boer  peasant. 

K  2 


THE    SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA    245 

the  Dutch  dream  of  a  South  African  Bepublic  a  reality. 
The  alien  element  in  the  Transvaal  has  given  us  not  a 
little  trouble  already ;  and,  assuredly,  in  the  absence  of 
those  restrictive  measures  which  British  statesmen  can 
hardly  adopt,  our  troubles  with  the  foreign  vote  in  the 
baUot-box  will  not  diminish.  This  danger  cannot  be 
ignored,  but  it  should  not  be  exaggerated.  The  unrestricted 
influx  of  foreigners  into  the  new  colonies  may  give  rise 
to  anxiety,  both  from  their  probable  numbers  and  their 
character.  But  it  should  be  remembered,  in  the  first 
place,  that  they  are  not  likely  to  come  unless  there  is 
work  for  them  to  do  ;  and  that  hands  are  as  important  as 
capital  for  the  development  of  the  country.  Secondly,  if 
even  under  the  disadvantageous  conditions  hitherto  pre- 
vailing, the  British  element  on  the  Rand  largely  out- 
numbered the  foreign,  it  is  not  likely  that  the  proportions 
will  be  reversed  under  the  new  regime.  But,  whether  this 
turn  out  to  be  the  case  or  not,  it  is  against  our  principles 
to  restrict  immigration  ;  and  if  we  wished  to  desert  those 
principles  in  this  case,  the  difficulties,  practical  and 
political,  would  prove  insuperable.  We  can  only  hope 
that  prosperity  and  good  government  will  turn  these 
foreigners  into  good  citizens. 

The  danger,  however,  makes  it  all  the  more  incumbent 
on  us  to  adopt  a  wise  and  liberal  ;)olicy,  designed  to  attract 
British  immigrants  to  the  newand  the  old  colonies.  Several 
suggestions  have  already  been  made.  The  establishment 
of  agricultural  colonies,  composed  of  reservists  from  the 
police  forces,  is  one  proposal,  which  the  Gk>vemment  is 
believed  to  favour ;  though  all  experience  and  all  the  pro- 
babilities are  against  the  successful  and  permanent  con- 
version of  the  adventurous  and  roving  type,  found  in  these 
irreg^ular  forces,  into  steady  and  successful  small  peasant 
proprietors.  Land  schemes,  such  as  find  f avom*  in  other 
quarters,  are  as  a  rule  open  to  the  objection  that  the  at- 
traction of  the  mining  and  urban  centres  is  too  strong  to 
be  resisted,  and  that  in  a  short  time  the  immigrants 
become  dissatisfied  and  adopt  other  occupations  or  leave 
the  country.  Against  these  and  similar  proposals  the 
general  objection  holds  good  that  artificial  immigration 
of  this  character  never  yet  peopled  a  colony.  Owing  to 
tiie  expense,  only  hundreds  can  be  thus  introduced  when 
thousands  are  needed.    Here  and  there  a  scheme  may  be 


THE   SETTLEMENT    OF   SOUTH    AFRICA    247 

are  the  alchemists  that  will  resolve  South  Africa's  troubles. 
Least  in  value,  but  first  in  power  to  attract,  are  its  minerals. 
All  measures  likely  to  induce  capital  to  seek  its  profits  in 
exploiting  the  country's  gold,  silver,  tin,  lead,  iron,  copper, 
and  coal,  its  diamonds  and  sapphires,  should  be  taken.  In 
this  field  the  danger  to  be  guarded  against  is  that  prejudice 
which  regards  capital  as  a  maleficent  agency.  Capital  is  a 
new  country's  greatest  need.  Money  attracts. men;  and 
minerals,  if  legislation  is  not  unwise,  attract  money. 
Fortunately  for  the  chances  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  civilisa- 
tion in  Africa,  th0  development  of  her  minerals  has  been 
delayed  until  now,  when  the  political  control  has  passed 
to  us — ^if  we  do  not  wilfully  throw  it  away. 

The  subject  of  South  Africa's  mineral  resources  calls 
for  separate  discussion.  All  that  need  be  said  here  is  that 
a  generous  iK>licy  is  essential,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of 
South  Africa  as  for  that  of  the  Empire.  When  large 
accessions  to  the  civilian  garrison  are  required  to  protect 
the  strategic  centre  of  the  Empire  it  is  not  wise  to  scruti- 
nise too  closely  the  exact  measure  of  the  burdens  which 
the  country  can  support  without  collapsing.  Yet  it  is 
possible,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  utterances  of  responsible 
leaders,  that,  to  save  a  surplus,  the  millions  we  have  spent 
on  the  war  will  be  lost  as  effectually  as  the  money  we 
spent  to  9oerce  America.  A  republican  South  Africa — 
and,  unless  we  can  make  the  country  a  contented  British 
State,  a  republic  it  will  be — will  compel  the  historian  of 
the  future  to  regard  the  war  tax,  like  the  tea  tax,  amongst 
the  measures  that  have  decided  the  fate  of  nations. 

We  repeat  that  the  fate  of  South  Africa  as  a  British 
possession  will  be  decided  mainly  by  the  steps  taken  or 
omitted  to  further  the  development  of  her  natural  wealth 
— ^minerals  being  in  this  connexion  the  most  important. 
After  the  gold,  the  immense  coal  and  iron  deposits  ought 
to  be  actively  worked,  and  with  the  exploitation  of  these 
should  proceed  the  development  of  the  country's  illimitable 
agricultural  resources.  We  use  the  word  *  ilUmitable '  ad- 
visedly, though  doubtless  there  are  many  who,  gauging 
the  future  by  the  past,  condenm  South  Africa  to  perpetual 
barrenness,  and  believe  that,  because  she  has  for  a  genera- 
tion past  imported  her  food,  she  must  always  do  so.  As 
the  impression  is  widely  spread  that  there  is  little  to 


THE    SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA    249 

once  cease  to  be  a  food-importing  country.  The  effort  of 
an  insufficient  population  to  spread  itself  over  and  occupy 
the  land  is  largely  responsible  for  the  neglect  of  agfricul- 
ture,  since  the  owner  of  three  or  four  thousand  acres  finds 
it  easier  and  more  profitable  to  raise  sheep  and  cattle  than 
to  attempt  to  earn  a  living  by  raising  crops.  The  defec- 
tive means  of  communication  and  the  immense  distances 
are  also  to  be  reckoned  among  the  chief  causes  why 
agriculture  can  scarcely  be  said  to  exist  in  South  Africa. 

Yet  enough  has  been  done  to  prove  that  much  more 
can  be  done.     There  are  very  few  countries  so  favoured 
by  nature  as  the  western  Cape  Colony  for  the  production 
of  great  quantities  of  wine.     The  rainfall  is  sufficient,  the 
seasons  are  favourable,  and  the  soil  is  fertile;  but  the 
efforts  of  the  Dutch  cultivators  have  resulted,  after  cen- 
turies of  mistaken  methods,  in  the  production  mainly  of 
an  inferior  brandy,  which  has  an  unenviable  reputation, 
even  in  South  A&ica,  as  ^  Cape  Smoke.'    It  has  been  de- 
monstrated that  the  quality  of  the  wine  and  spirit  when 
scientifically  treated  is  very  high;  and  only  capital  is 
needed  to  develope  an  industry  that  will  provide  lucrative 
employment  for  thousands  of  cultivators.     The  world, 
however,  is  quite  ignorant  of  the  dormant  wealth  of  the 
Cai>e  Colony  as  a  wine-producing  country.     For  example, 
what  Euroi)ean  vine-grower  is  aware  that  the  average 
annual  yield  of  wine  from  the  coast  vineyards  is   190 
gallons  ;>er  thousand  vines ;  that  in  other  districts  the  yield 
is  400  gallons  per  thousand  vines  ;  and  that  in  some  cases 
as  much  as  600  gallons  are  obtained — that  is  to  say,  that 
the  yield  is  five  or  six  times  greater  than  the  yield  from 
French  vines,  and  six  or  seven  times  greater  than  it  is  in 
Australia  or  California  ?    A  wine  expert  who  was  called 
in  to  report  in  1894  stated  that,  except  in  the  Constantia 
district,  the  farmers  did  not  understand  how  to  make 
wine ;  and  he  predicted,  amongst  other  things,  fortunes 
for  the  manufacturers  of  fine  cognac.    More  attention  is 
now  being  paid  to  scientific  methods  of  treatment,  but  the 
work  so  far  accompUshed  is  almost  infinitesimal. 

The  real  cause  of  the  backward  condition  of  viticulture 
at  the  Cape  is  the  ignorance  and  conservatism  of  the 
Dutch  cultivators.  Not  until  capital  and  energy  are  in- 
troduced will  the  neglected  wealth  of  the  country  as  one 
of  the  most  favoured  wine-growing  areas  in  the  world  be 


THE    SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA    251 

'Then  you  will  say.  Are  there  no  growers  at  the  Cape? 
Truly  very  few ;  here  one,  there  one,  but  by  no  means  suffi- 
cient to  give  a  character  to  this  magnificent  country  as  a  home 
of  fruit-growing — ^not  sufficient,  even,  to  lead  by  example  the 
prevailing  carelessness  into  better  ways.  The  growth  of  fruit 
here  has  been  almost  always  a  by-thing,  or  what  we  might 
call  a  toy-pursuit  of  the  landowner.' 

Every  word  of  this  opinion  is  true ;  and  true  not  of  the 
Cape  Colony  only,  but  of  all  the  British  States  in  South 
Africa — excepting  of  course  the  arid  areas  in  the  west, 
from  the  Karoo  northwards  through  Bechuanaland  as  far 
as  the  2^nibesi.  Natal,  especially  the  higher  districts 
about  Ladysmith,  and  Swaziland,  farther  north,  are  agri- 
culturally rich,  and  should  in  the  course  of  a  few  years 
be  in  a  position  to  supply  Europe  with  choice  summer 
fruits  and  vegetables  in  December  and  January.  An 
article  on  the  '  Highlands  of  Natal,'  published  in  the  book 
already  mentioned,  *  British  Africa,*  says : 

*  The  extraordinary  facility  with  which  avenues  of  all  sorts 
can  be  produced  is  always  one  of  the  pleasantest  features  of 
High  Natal.  The  oak  grows  almost  three  times,  the  weeping 
willow  quite  four  times  as  fast  as  in  England ;  the  wholesome- 
smelling  tribe  of  eucalyptus  grows  from  ten  to  twenty  feet  a 
year.  .  .  .  The  Natal  orange  has  been  exported,  but  as  yet  on 
a  slight  scale ;  but  a  quotation  from  the  London  agent  seems 
worth  giving.  Messrs  Gillespie  and  Sons  of  London  wrote: 
"...  the  mandarins  were,  without  exception,  the  very  finest 
lot  ever  seen  in  our  market,  the  boxes  containing  only  a 
hundred  realising  1^.  each  wholesale.  This  is,  we  believe,  the 
highest  price  that  has  ever  been  obtained." ' 

It  woidd  be  easy  to  multiply  the  evidence  bearing  on 
the  value  of  South  Africa  for  &uit-growing — an  industry 
which  has  been  completely  neglected,  but  is  nevertheless 
capable  of  filling  the  land  with  British  inomigrants.  Money, 
energy,  technical  knowledge,  railways,  men,  and  progres- 
sive legislation  are  needed  before  anything  great  can  be 
done ;  but  it  should  be  possible  to  secure  these  things  after 
the  war — not  only  for  fruit-culture  and  wine-making,  but 
for  the  many  other  promising  fields  open  to  agriculturists. 
In  adjunctive  agriculture,  for  instance,  such  as  sheep-, 
cattle-,  and  horse-farming,  ostrich-  and  antelope-rearing, 
there  is  great  scope  for  experienced  men  who  are  prepared 


THE    SETTLEMENT    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA    258 

wars.  But  the  road  is  now  open  for  remedial  measures 
that  will  tend  to  bring  agriculture  to  its  natural  i)Osition 
as  the  main  source  of  South  Africa's  wealth. 

In  this  direction  so  much  has  yet  to  be  done  that  it  is 
not  easy  to  specify  the  reforms  most  urgently  called  for. 
Whatever  is  done,  the  extent  of  the  country  is  such  that 
co-operation  between  the  various  States  and  the  Imperial 
Gk>vemment  is  very  desirable.  There  is  room  for  the  ener- 
gies of  several  Royal  Commissions,  for  not  only  must  data 
be  collected  in  the  newStates,but  also  in  such  comparatively 
settled  districts  as  Natal,  the  Cape,  and  Rhodesia.  The  re- 
cognised duty  of  a  State  Executive,  to  conserve  and  develope 
the  natural  wealth  of  its  country,  has  been  neglected  to  a 
scandalous  extent  by  all  the  South  African  Governments, 
who  have  left  this  duty  to  the  people,  with  the  result  that, 
except  in  the  older  districts  of  the  Cape,  nothing  is  known 
of  the  capabilities  of  the  various  soils  or  the  methods  best 
suited  for  their  development.  It  is  obvious  that  the  work 
of  educating  the  people,  and  creating  those  co-operative 
organisations  without  which  modem  agriculture  cannot 
be  carried  on,  is  g^eat  enough  to  occupy  the  time  and 
energies  of  the  Liberal  party  in  South  Africa  for  a  great 
number  of  years.  That  party  has  not  yet  succeeded,  in 
the  Cai>e  Colony,  in  passing  so  elementary  a  measure  as  a 
Scab  Act  for  the  eradication  of  that  disease  in  the  sheep 
flocks  of  the  Colony,  while  such  minor  reforms  as  the 
scientific  study  of  the  animal  and  plant  diseases  peculiar 
to  the  country  have  hardly  been  mooted. 

As  illustrative  of  the  vast  extent  of  the  task  facing  in- 
telligent administrations  in  South  Africa,  let  us  look  for  a 
moment  at  the  subject  of  irrigation  and  its  bearing  on  the 
future.  Few  trustworthy  data  respecting  the  rainfall  have 
been  collected,  but  it  may  be  said  generally  that  each  section 
of  South  Africa  has  its  wet  and  its  dry  seasons.  In  the 
south  and  west  the  rains  fall  in  winter  ;  towards  the  east 
and  in  the  new  colonies  the  rains  occur  in  the  summer.  The 
highest  parts  of  the  country  lie  not  far  from  the  eastern 
seaboard ;  and  this  distribution  of  the  watersheds  on  the 
east  and  south  has  produced  the  great  basin  of  the  Orange 
river,  some  four  or  five  hundred  thousand  square  miles  in 
extent,  extending  from  the  boundaries  of  Natal  on  the 
east  over  half  the  Cape  Colony,  the  whole  of  the  Orange 


THE   SETTLEMENT    OF   SOUTH   AFRICA    266 

obtained  to  cultivate  successfully  five  million  acres ;  *  and 
if  the  value  of  this  area  could  be  increased  by  even  20Z.  an 
acre,  it  follows  that  the  Cape  Colony  would  be  permanently 
enriched  by  over  one  hundred  millions  sterling/ 

Obviously,  then,  the  work  of  conserving  the  rainfall  and 
utilising  the  rivers  must  be  taken  in  hand  by  the  Govern- 
ment. Indian  and  Califomian  experience  will  be  of  in- 
calculable service  in  this  matter,  as  those  countries  have 
bought  the  knowledge  necessary  to  conunand  success ;  and 
that  knowledge  is  at  the  service  of  the  Gk>vemments  of 
South  Africa.  The  officials  of  the  Cape  Colony  have  made 
some  praiseworthy  attempts  to  awaken  their  legislature  to 
the  v^ue  of  water,  but  so  far  their  success  has  been  small, 
though  public  opinion  is  now  making  itself  heard.  Mr 
Newey  in  the  Hydrographic  Report  mentioned  complains 
that— 

'  Hitherto  the  efforts  of  the  Department  [Public  Works]  to 
meet  the  felt  and  stated  wants  of  the  people,  and  to  educate 
them  up  to  the  acceptance  of  better  things,  have  been  hidden 
away  between  the  covers  of  the  blue-books,  prepared  at  very 
great  expense  and  probably  never  read  by  one  x)erson  in  a 
thousand  outside  the  Houses  of  Parliament;  and  I  should 
think  that  even  members  of  Parliament,  for  whose  information 
they  were  primarily  prepared  and  published,  might  not  be 
cognisant  of  the  representations  already  put  forth.' 

With  the  new  rigime  a  resolute  attempt  should  be  made 
to  demonstrate  to  the  x>eople  the  value  of  their  rainfall, 
and  not  of  their  rainfall  alone.  The  rains,  being  of  sub- 
tropical violence,  carry  vast  quantities  of  soil  into  the  rivers, 
to  be  wasted  in  the  sea.  There  is  hardly  a  farm  in  South 
Africa  where  a  little  judicious  work  directed .  towards  dis- 
X)er8ing  the  surface  waters  and  preventing  their  disappear- 
ance in  dongas  and  water-courses  would  not  do  much  to 
prevent  that  denudation  which  has  hitherto  gone  on  un- 
checked, to  the  great  detriment  of  the  country.  Such 
work  would  soon  have  an  appreciable  effect  on  the  quantity 
of  subterranean  waters  available,  though  South  Africa  can 
already  be  described  as  a  country  with  subterranean  rivers. 
The  dolomitic  limestones  in  the  Transvaal  and  Bechuana- 
land  favour  the  accumulation  of  great  subterranean  reser- 
voirs, which  may  yet  prove  to  be  the  means  of  rescuing  the 
Salihari  Desart  for  tlie  service  of  himianity.    Work  done 


PROFESSOR    HUXLEY  259 

and  work,  will  find  an  excellent  account  of  it,  in  a  brief 
compass,  in  Mr  Chalmers  Mitchell's  pages. 

Huxley's  own  estimate  of  his  position  in  the  scientific 
world  is  given  in  a  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Ripon  (1887) : — 

'  As  for  me,  in  part  from  force  of  circumstance  and  in  part 
from  a  conviction  I  could  be  of  most  use  in  that  way,  I  have 
played  the  part  of  something  between  maid-of -all-work  and 
gladiator-general  for  Science'  (ii,  162). 

He  thus  placed  his  public  duties  and,  above  all,  his  struggle 
to  uphold  '  the  dignity  and  the  freedom  of  science,'  before 
his  scientific  discoveries  ;  and,  significant  as  these  were,  it. 
is  impossible  to  feel  that  he  was  mistaken. 

Almost  at  the  outset  of  his  career,  Huxley  was  deeply 
impressed  by  the  utter  carelessness  of  scientific  require- 
ments, and  the  frequent  contempt  for  scientific  work,^ 
which  prevailed  in  the  British  Government  Services.  The 
Rattlesnake,  the  surveying  ship  on  which  he  was  surgeon, 
sailed  '  without  a  volume  on  science,'  in  spite  of  the  captain's . 
application.     On  the  voyage  itself,  Huxley  says : 

•  The  singular  disrespect,  with  which  the  majority  of  naval 
officers  regard  everything  that  lies  beyond  the  sphere  of 
routine,  tends  to  produce  a  tone  of  feeling  very  unfavourable  > 
to  scientific  exertions.  How  can  it  be  other\\4se,  in  fact,  with 
men  who,  from  the  age  of  thirteen,  meet  with  no  influence  but- 
tb^t  which  teaches  them  that  the  ''  Queen's  i^gulations  and 
instructions'*  are  the  law  and  the  prophets,  and  something 
raore?'(i,  49). 

When  Huxley  returned  home  and  was  working  out  his 
material,  he  found  it  imjKJSsible  to  get  a  small  grant  for 
publication.  In  returning  thanks  as  a  medallist  at  the 
Royal  Society  dinner,  on  November  30th,  1852,  he  said : 

*  The  Government  of  this  country,  of  this  great  country, 
has  been  two  years  debating  whether  it  should  grant  the 
three  hundred  pounds  necessary  for  the  publication  of  these 
researches '  (i,  104). 

Twenty-one  years  later  he  wrote  to  Professor  Anton  Dohm, 
who  was  then  founding  the  Zoological  Station  at  Naples  : 

^I  only  wish  I  could  see  England  represented  among  the 
applicants  for  tables.  But  you  see  England  is  so  poor '  (i,  890). 

s  2 


PROFESSOR    HUXLEY  261 

which  he  wrote  to  the  then  Director,  Sir  W.  H.  Flower, 
in  1891 : 

*  My  "  next  worst  thing  "  was  promoting  a  weak  man  to  a 
place  of  responsibility  in  lieu  of  a  strong  one,  on  the  mere 
ground  of  seniority.  Ccetei^ia  paribua,  or  even  with  approxi- 
mate equality  of  qualifications,  no  doubt  seniority  ought  to 
count ;  but  it  is  mere  ruin  to  any  service  to  let  it  interfere 
with  the  promotion  of  men  of  marked  superiority,  especially 
in  the  case  of  offices  which  involve  much  responsibility '  (ii,  295). 

So  far  as  the  Trustees  are  able  to  make  occasional  ex- 
ceptions in  appointment  or  advancement  they  of  coui^se 
create  a  grievance  in  the  minds  of  the  most  deserving 
among  those  who  have  been  subject  to  the  mechanical 
system.  Here  is  a  cause  in  which  we  may  well  invoke  a 
double  i>ortion  of  Huxley's  spirit  to  aid  us  in  sweeping 
away  the  sterile  influences  which  unfortunately  hold  sway 
in  a  noble  institution.  On  June  7th,  1887,  Huxley  had  an 
interview  by  appomtment  with  Lord  SaHsbury,  then  Prime 
Minister.  He  took  some  very  interesting  notes  imme- 
diately after  the  interview  (ii,  164, 165),  which  was  signifi- 
cant of  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  Government  formally 
to  recognise  achievement  in  science,  letters,  and  art.  The 
difficidties  of  ofiicial  recognition  were  well  put  by  Huxley ; 
and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  scientific  man  such  a 
movement,  as  well  as  the  conferment  of  rank  or  nobility, 
to  which  Huxley  also  objected,  would  be  of  doubtful 
advantage.  But  from  the  point  of  view  of  public  advan- 
tage it  would  seem  to  be  the  duty  of  a  man  of  science 
always  to  help,  in  however  small  a  degree,  the  Govern- 
ment and  Services  to  maintain  and  increase  their  contact 
with  scientific  workers  and  thinkers. 

The  requirements  of  space  prevent  any  further  con- 
sideration on  the  present  occasion  of  Huxley's  public 
duties — of  his  services  to  education,  of  his  work  on  Royal 
Commissions,  of  his  tenure  of  important  offices  in  the 
scientific  world,  including  the  most  important  of  all,  the 
Presidency  of  the  Royal  Society.  In  these  positions  '  the 
freedom  and  the  dignity  of  science '  was  the  cause  which 
he  ever  served  with  unfailing  energy  and  conscientious- 
ness. Although  Huxley  was  immersed  in  these  public 
duties,  and  was  much  hampered  by  ill-health,  he  had  the 
keenest  enthusiasm  for  research.     His  enquirie«  "™'^*»«  not 


PROFESSOR    HUXLEY  263 

augurated  in  1872  (ii,  411).  But  an  imperfect  picture  of 
the  man  would  be  given  if  his  isolation  and  aloofness  from 
general  zoological  enquiry  were  not.  insisted  on  as  a  very- 
marked  feature. 

It  is  impossible  within  the  limits  of  our  space  to  give 
an  adequate  account  of  his  numerous  scientific  memoirs, 
mjany  of  which  laid  the  foundation  of  later  advance.  As 
Mr  Mitchell  truly  says  of  his  work  on  the  Medusae  and 
the  allied  groups, 

^  Just  as  the  sux)er8tructures  of  a  great  building  conceal  the 
foundations,  so  later  anatomical  work,  although  it  only  ampli- 
fied and  extended  Huxley's  discoveries,  has  made  them  seem 
less  striking  to  the  modem  reader'  (pp.  84,  85) ; 

and  the  same  words  might  be  used  of  many  of  his  other 
papers.  Rather  than  attempt  the  discussion  of  these,  the 
object  of  the  present  writer  will  be  briefiy  to  set  forth 
the  relation  of  Huxley  to  the  ideas  for  which  he  did  so 
much,  and  which  did  so  much  for  him — the  doctrine  of 
evolution  and  its  suggested  motive  cause  in  the  hypothesis 
of  natural  selection.  These  ideas  largely  controlled  and 
modified  his  life  from  the  end  of  1859,  illuminating  and 
directing  the  lines  of  his  zoological  and  palfiBontological 
researches,  and  inspiring  the  noble  stand  which  he  so 
successfully  made  against  all  those  infiuences  which  tend 
to  restrain  the  most  perfect  freedom  in  the  search  for 
truth,  and  the  free  expression  of  the  conclusions  to  which 
that  research  may  lead. 

Those  who  have  been  inclined  to  belittle  the  hyx>othe8is 
of  natural  selection,  now  that  the  battle  of  evolution  is 
won,  should  reflect  upon  the  waste  of  speculation  in  which 
the  greatest  minds  of  their  age  were  wandering,  until 
guided  by  the  light  which  first  appeared  to  Darwin  and 
Wallace.  So  we  find  even  Darwin  thus  explaining  the  ex- 
tinction of  species  by  causes  operating  from  within:  'As 
with  the  individual,  so  with  the  species,  the  hour  of  life 
has  run  its  course,  and  is  spent.'  Just  as  the  length  of  the 
life  of  an  individual,  if  not  terminated  prematurely  by 
accidental  causes,  is  predetermined  in  the  structure  of  the 
first  cell,  so  Darwin,  in  the  days  before  natural  selection 
occurred  to  him,  seems  to  have  imagined  that  the  life  of 
a  species  is  predetermined  in  the  structure  of  the  first 
individuals  that  compose  it.     In  other  words,  both  indi- 


PROFESSOR    HUXLEY  265 

This .  opinion  is  a  revelation  to  anyone  who  has  seen 
liCacIeay's  extraordinary  diagprams ;  and  it  is  abnost  a  relief 
to  find  from  his  later  writings  that  Huxley  upon  the  whole 
came  to  prefer  an  agnostic  attitude  towards  evolution  £tnd 
its  causes.  When,  however,  later  on,  evolution  was  '  in  the 
air,'  and  natural  selection  had  been  before  the  world  for 
nearly  a  year,  although  as  yet  unfamiliar  to  Huxley,  a 
letter  to  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  written  on  June  25th,  1869,  in- 
dicates that  his  only  hope  of  a  solution  at  that  time  still 
lay  in  his  old  comparison  with  the  definite  proportions  of 
chemistry  (i,  173,  174). 

The  isolation  which  was  so  remarkable  in  Huxley  is 
apparent  in  the  history  of  the  famous  years  1858  and 
1869.  Although  the  hypothesis  of  natural  selection  was 
thoroughly  explained  to  the  world  in  the  joint  paper  of 
Darwin  and  Wallace  read  before  the  linnean  Society 
July  1st,  1858,  and  although  Darwin  had  long  before  this 
explained  his  ideals  to  Hooker,  Lyell,  and  Asa  Gray,  Huxley 
tells  us  that  the  thought  which  was  uppermost  in  his 
mind  when  he  had  read  the  '  Origin,'  in  November  1859, 
was :  *  How  extremely  stupid  not  to  have  thought  of  that  I '  * 
and  his  letter  to  Lyell,  alluded  to  in  the  previous  x>aragraph, 
shows  that  natural  selection  was  then  unknown  to  him. 
His  letter  to  Hooker  on  September  5th,  1858,  proves  that  he 
had  a  general  idea  that  great  changes  were  impending,  for 
it  contains  the  words,  *  Wallace's  impetus  seems  to  have 
set  Darwin  going  in  earnest,  and  I  am  rejoiced  to  hear 
that  we  shall  learn  his  views  in  full,  at  last.  I  look  forward 
to  a  great  revolution  being  effected '  (i,  159).  But  an  ex- 
cellent abstract  of  Darwin's  views  had  already  been  given 
to  the  world ;  and  a  few  weeks  later  a  paper  by  Canon 
Tristram  appeared  in  '  The  Ibis '  (October  1st,  1858)  accept- 
ing the  principle  of  natural  selection  and  applying  it  to 
the  explanation  of  the  colours  of  Saharan  birds. 

The  •  Origin '  convinced  Huxley  once  for  all  as  to  the 
sufficiency  of  the  evidence  for  evolution,  and  the  pro- 
bability of  natural  selection  as  its  explanation.  He  in- 
instantly  foresaw  the  struggle  which  would  come,  and 
braced  himself  to  bear  the  brunt  of  it.  He  fought  with 
all  the  more  vigour  and  spirit  because  the  contest  was  not 
only  for  fair  play  to  evolution  but  for  the  much  wider 


*  *  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin/  ii,  197. 


PROFESSOR    HUXLEY  267 

to  hear  such  a  vigorous  defence  of  Darwin.  Even  ten 
years  later  Professor  Bolleston  wrote  the  most  carefully- 
guarded  sentences  concerning  evolution  in  the  introduction 
to  his  *  Forms  of  Animal  Life '  (1870,  p.  xxv).  One  in- 
teresting and  curious  feature  of  the  record  is  the  fact  that 
the  published  accounts  of  the  successful  repulse  of  the 
Bishop  have  been  so  largely  contributed  by  the  clergy. 
We  owe  most  of  our  knowledge  of  the  great  contest  to 
Canon  Farrar  of  Durham,  Canon  Fremantle,  and  J.  R. 
Green ;  more  recently  Canon  Tuckwell  has  written  an 
account  which  represents  the  more  doubtful  view  of 
Huxley's  success.  It  may  be  worth  whUe,  in  considering 
the  attitude  of  Oxford  on  this  famous  occasion,  to  recall 
the  fact  that  Professor  Baden  Powell,  in  his  essay  *  On  the 
Evidences  of  Christianity,'  written  soon  after  the  appear- 
ance  of  Darwin's  great  book,  and  before  the  meeting  of 
the  British  Association,  calls  it '  a  work  which  must  soon 
bring  about  an  entire  revolution  of  opinion  in  favour  of  the 
grand  principle  of  the  self -evolving  powers  of  nature.'* 

AlthoughHuxleybecame,ashehimself  expressedit,'Dar- 
win's  buU-dog,'  and  did  more  than  any  other  man  to  secure  a 
fair  hearing  for  the  new"  views,  he  by  no  means  committed 
himself  to  the  entire  acceptance  of  natural  selection.  From 
the  very  first,  and  from  time  to  time  down  to  the  end  of 
his  life,  he  wrote  and  said  that  the  evidence  in  favour  of 
this  hypothesis  was  insufficient.  It  would  be  easy,  if  space 
permitted,  to  support  this  statement  by  a  series  of  quota- 
tions from  his  speeches  and  writings,  showing  that  his 
opinion  on  this  subject  never  wavered  during  the  thirty- 
four  years  between  the  publication  of  the  *  Origin '  and  his 
speech  at  the  Royal  Society  dinner  on  November  30th,  1894. 
But  in  spite  of  this  want  of  entire  confidence  in  natural 
selection,  Huxley  was  enabled  by  its  aid  to  accept  evolu- 
tion. He  had  been  an  agnostic  as  regards  evolution, 
because  '  firstly . . .  the  evidence  in  favour  of  transmutation 
was  wholly  insufficient,'  and  secondly  because  *  no  sugges- 
tion respecting  the  causes  of  the  transmutation  assumed, 
wrhich  had  been  made,  was  in  any  w^ay  adequate  to  ex- 
plain the  phenomena.'  As  regards  the  first  difficulty, 
Darwin  completely  convinced  him  in  chapters  ix-xii  of 
the  '  Origin,'  while  the  second  was  removed  by  natural 

*  *  Essays  and  Reviews/  7th  ed.  (1801),  p.  139. 


268  PROFESSOR    HUXLEY 

selection,  even  if  the  hypothesis  itself  should  ultimately  be 
disproved;  for — 

*  if  we  had  none  of  us  been  able  to  discern  the  paramount  sig- 
nificance of  some  of  the  most  patent  and  notorious  of  natural 
facts,  until  they  were,  so  to  speak,  thrust  under  our  noses, 
what  force  remained  in  the  dilemma — creation  or  nothing? 
It  was  obvious  that,  hereafter,  the  probability  would  be  im- 
mensely greater,  that  the  links  of  natural  causation  were 
hidden  from  our  purblind  eyes,  than  that  natural  causation 
should  be  incompetent  to  produce  all  the  phenomena  of 
nature.'  • 

It  is  of  great  interest  to  consider  the  flaw  in  the  ex- 
perimental proof  of  the  validity  of  natural  selection  which 
affected  Huxley's  opinion  so  powerfully,  and  to  attempt 
to  determine  whether  he  was  entirely  justified  in  his 
reserved  and  cautious  attitude.  The  different  races  of 
animals  into  which  a  species  is  often  broken  up  are  fertile 
inter  se ;  nearly  related  species  when  paired  produce  hybrids 
which  are  themselves  sterile  inter  8e\  distantly  related 
species  when  paired  cannot  produce  offspring  at  all.  By 
artificial  selection  man  has  broken  up  a  species,  such  as 
the  ancestor  of  our  fowls  or  pigeons,  into  sets  of  forms 
which  are  often  as  different  structurally  as  widely  separated 
species,  and  yet  remain  functionally  mere  races,  mutually 
fertile  and  reproductive.  In  order  to  prove  that  natural 
selection  has  produced  the  functional  gaps  between  exist* 
ing  species,  Huxley  maintained  that  we  ought  to  be  able 
to  produce  the  same  sterility  between  our  artificially 
selected  breeds;  and  until  this  had  been  done  he  could  not 
thoroughly  accept  the  theory  of  natural  selection.  This 
objection  is  expressed  in  many  of  his  writings,  one  of  the 
simplest  statements  being  in  a  letter  to  the  late  Charles 
Kingsley : — 

'  Their  produce  [viz.  that  of  Horse  and  Ass]  is  usually  a  sterile 
hybrid.  So  if  Carrier  and  Tumbler,  e,g,,  were  physiological 
species  equivalent  to  Horse  and  Ass,  their  progeny  ought  to  be 
sterile  or  semi-sterile.  So  far  as  experience  has  gone,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  is  perfectly  fertile— as  fertile  as  the  progeny  of  Carrier 
and  Carrier  or  Tumbler  and  Tumbler.    From  the  first  time  I 


*  *  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin,*  vol.  11,  p.  108  ;  chapter  by  T.  H. 
Uiizley,  *  On  the  Reception  of  the  *'  Origin  of  Species." ' 


PROFESSOR    HUXLEY  271 

are  still  partially  fertile  in  that  they  can  produce  hybrid 
offspring.  When  our  domestic  breeds  of  pigeons  have 
been  entirely  prevented  from  interbreeding  for  some  im^ 
mense  period  of  time,  we  may  expect  that  they  too  will 
only  produce  sterile  hybrids^and  later  still  not  even  these. 
At  present  the  majority  of  these  breeds  are  not  every* 
where  rigidly  prevented  from  interbreeding,  so  that  an 
approximation  to  natural  species-formation  has  not  even 
begun.  There  are  others,  however,  such  as  the  most 
imdely  different  breeds  of  dogs,  in  which  the  divergence 
in  size  is  so  extreme  that  interbreeding  has  probably  been 
a  mechanical  impossibility  for  some  considerable  time. 
The  sexual  nuclei  of  such  breeds  could  be  brought  to- 
gether by  artificial  means,  and  it  would  be  of  the  highest 
interest  to  obtain  a  careful  record  of  the  degree  of  mutual 
fertility. 

If,  then,  we  cannot  as  yet  reproduce  by  artificial  selec- 
tion all  the  characteristics  of  natural  species-formation, 
but  can  only  imitate  natural  race-formation,  we  can  never- 
theless appreciate  the  reasons  for  this  want  of  success, 
and  are  no  more  compelled  to  relinquish  our  full  confidence 
in  natural  selection  than  we  are  compelled  to  adopt  a 
guarded  attitude  towards  evolution  because  our  historical 
records  are  not  long  enough  to  register  the  change  of  one 
species  into  another. 

Another  point  upon  which  Huxley  felt  doubtful,  and 
expressed  his  doubt  in  a  letter  to  Darwin  (i,  175,  176),  is 
the  rejection  in  the  *Orig^'  of  per  saUum  or  discon- 
tinuous evolution.  An  interesting  letter  to  Sir  Charles 
Lyell  (June  25th,  1859)  shows  that  this  conclusion  ran 
counter  to  his  preconceived  views ;  for  in  it  he  argued 
that  ^  transmvtation  may  take  place  without  transition ' 
(i,  173, 174).  He  stated  this  objection  in  the  *  Westminster ' 
in  1860,  but  did  not  continue  to  refer  to  it ;  and  it  is  possible 
that  his  palfiBontological  researches  gradually  led  him  to 
modify  his  conclusions.  Whether  new  species  arise  by 
sudden  changes  in  structure  or  by  gradual  transition  is  a 
question  capable  of  decision  by  a  sufficient  study  of  the 
records  preserved  in  the  rocks ;  and,  although  this  record 
is  as  a  whole  extremely  imperfect,  certain  parts  of  it  are 
remarkably  complete.  In  these  latter  the  smooth  and 
continuous  passage  of  skeletal  ab||Mfaires  ftatgf^fi,  older 
parent  form  through  a  series  of *^^Bbs  in  the-^Brlying 


274  PROFESSOR    HUXLEY 

publish  a  monograph  upon  so  rare  and  treasured  a  form 
as  Spirula^  and  one  from  which  so  much  was  expected. 
Finally,  in  1803,  he  handed  over  his  plates,  with  an  ex* 
planation  of  them,  to  Professor  Pilseneer  of  Ghent,  who 
wrote  the  paper  for  the  /  Reports  *  (ii,  360-362).  The  paper 
is  illustrated  by  Huxley's  plates,  and  api)ear8  under  their 
joint  names,  Huxley  consenting  to  Pilseneer's  wish  that 
this  should  be  the  case. 

The  authors  of  the  two  biographies,  both  Oxford  men, 
do  scant  justice  to  their  university  as  regards  the  teach- 
ing of  science.  Oxford  has  lost  so  much  by  spending  im- 
mense sums  on  laboratories  before  it  was  known  how  best 
to  construct  them,  that  she  might  at  least  have  the  credit 
of  her  misfortunes.  This  Mr  Leonard  Huxley  would  with- 
hold from  her  (ii,  110);  while  Mr  Chahners  Mitchell  implies 
that  Rolleston's  students  did  not  themselves  dissect  the 
animals  chosen  as  types  of  the  chief  divisions  (p.  170).  The 
true  history  of  the  type-system  of  instruction  is  given  in 
the  'life  and  Letters '(i,  377,378), where  Professor  Lankester 
expresses  the  opinion  *  that  Rolleston  was  influenced  in  his 
plan  by  your  father's  advice.  But  Rolleston  had  the  earlier 
opportunity  of  putting  the  method  into  practice.'  This  im- 
portant system  of  teaching,  which  has  influenced  the  study 
of  natural  history  far  and  wide,  was  beg^un  at  Oxford  about 
1861,  while  Rolleston  published  his  notes  as  *  Forms  of 
Animal  Life'  in  1870.  Huxley's  classes  began  in  1871, 
while  the  *  Practical  Listruction  in  Elementary  Biology/ 
by  him  and  H.  N.  Martin,  first  appeared  in  1875.  It  is  true 
that  Rolleston's  unfortunately  i>edantic  style  prevented 
his  work  from  producing  a  far-reaching  influence  like 
that  exerted  by  the  luminous  and  x>erfectly  simple  de- 
.scriptions  of  which  Huxley  was  a  master. 

There  are  a  few  obvious  mistakes  in  detail  in  the  '  Life 
^nd  Letters.'  Professor  Lankester  is  described  as  a  Fellow 
of  University  instead  of  Exeter  (i,  408).  Wilfrid  Ward  s 
statement  that  Frank  Balfour  was  at  Eton,  instead  of 
Harrow,  is  quoted  without  correction  (ii,  307).  There  are 
also  some  imcorrected  errors  in  H.  F.  Osbom's  account  of 
Huxley's  speech  in  seconding  the  vote  of  thanks  to  Lord 
Salisbury  at  the  meeting  of  the  British  Association  at  Ox- 
ford in  1804  (ii,  376,  377).  The  occasion  waa  not '  Huxley's 
last  public  appearance,'  nor  had  he  *  spoken  his  last  word 
as  champion  of  the  law  of  evolution ' :  these  statements 


PHOKEWSOR    HUXEEY  2Tfir 

were  true  of  his  speech  nearly  four  months  later  at  the 
Boyal  Society  dinner  on  November  30th.  Professor  Os* 
bom  also  speaks  of  the  D.C.L.  gown  *  placed  upon  his 
shoulders  by  the  very  body  of  men  who  had  once  referred 
to  him  as  "  a  Mr  Huxley.'* '  The  words  were  really  used  by 
the '  Times/  as  Mr  Mitchell  correctly  states  (p.  66).  Among 
the  few  mistakes  in  Mr  Mitchell's  work  is  the  statement 
that  Huxley  made  several  trips  to  America  (p.  276) :  he 
made  but  a  single  visit,  in  1876,  when  the  '  American  Ad- 
dresses '  were  delivered. 

It  has  been  commonly  believed  that  Huxley's  extra* 
ordinary  success  as  a  speaker  was  the  outcome  of  practice 
rather  than  natural  capacity.  The  late  Professor  RoUeston 
even  pointed  to  Huxley's  success  as  an  example  from  which 
encouragement  might  be  derived  by  poor  lecturers,  showing 
the  heights  which  may  gradually  be  attained  by  patient 
trial  and  long  experience.  This  opinion  appears  to  have 
been  held  by  Huxley  himself,  and  is  expressed  in  the  *  Life  * 
{e.g.  vol.  i,  pp.  87,  88,  413),  and  by  Mr  Mitchell  (pp.  208, 209). 
It  is  of  course  true  that  great  improvement  in  speaking 
may  be  effected  by  practice,  but  it  would  be  holding  out 
false  hopes  to  the  beginner  to  suggest  that  anything 
approaching  the  remarkable  power  exhibited  by  Huxley 
could  be  attained  except  by  the  fortunate  possessor  of  an 
innate  faculty  at  a  very  unusual  level  of  development. 
Experience  enabled  Huxley  to  control  his  natural  nervous- 
ness, and  thus  to  give  his  power  free  play ;  but  the  power 
itself  was  one  of  '  the  things  that  are  inborn  and  cannot 
be  taught,'  to  use  his  own  words  as  applied  to  *  energy  and 
intellectual  grip '  (ii,  320).  There  is  evidence  that  he  was 
successful  from  the  very  first,  and  that  to  the  end  he  re- 
tained the  strong  feeling,  essential  to  the  finest  oratory, 
that  in  speaking  he  was  undertaking  no  light  task,  but 
something  serious  and  difficult,  demanding  close  concen- 
tration, and  even  then  entered  upon  almost  with  a  sense 
of  impending  failure. 

A  very  interesting  account  of  his  feelings  on  the  occasion 
of  his  first  lecture  is  given  in  a  letter  to  Miss  Heathom 
(i,  98).  He  was  just  twenty-seven  at  the  time.  Writing 
on  April  30th,  1852,  he  says : — 

*  I  have  just  returned  from  giving  my  lecture  at  the  Royal 
Institution,  of  which  I  told  you  in  my  last  letter.  I  had  got 
very  nervous  about  it,  and  my  poor  mother*s  death  had  greatly 

T  2 


276  PROFESSOR    HUXLEY 

upset  my  plans  for  working  it  out.  It  was  the  first  lecture 
I  had  ever  given  in  my  life,  and  to  what  is  considered  the  best 
audience  in  London.  As  i^othing  ever  works  up  my  energies 
but  a  high  flight,  I  had  chosen  a  very  difScult  abstract  point, 
in  my  view  of  which  I  stand  almost  alone.  [The  subject  was 
'On  Animal  Individuality.']  When  I  took  a  glimpse  into 
the  theatre  and  saw  it  full  of  faces,  I  did  feel  most  amazingly 
uncomfortable.  I  can  now  quite  understand  what  it  is  to  be 
going  to  be  hanged,  and  nothing  but  the  necessity  of  the  case 
prevented  me  from  running  away.  However,  when  the  hour 
struck,  in  I  marched,  and  began  to  deliver  my  discourse.  For 
ten  minutes  I  did  not  quite  know  where  I  was,  but  by  degrees 
I  got  used  to  it,  and  gradually  gained  perfect  command  of 
myself  and  of  my  subject.  I  believe  I  contrived  to  interest  my 
audience,  and  upon  the  whole  I  think  I  may  say  that  this  essay 
was  successful.  Thank  Heaven  I  can  say  so,  for  though  it  is 
no  great  matter  succeeding,  failing  would  have  been  a  bitter 
annoyance  to  me.  It  has  put  me  comfortably  at  my  ease  with 
regard  to  all  future  lecturings.  After  the  Royal  Institution 
there  is  no  audience  I  shall  ever  fear.' 

Remembering  that  this  account  is  written  by  one 
who  was  extremely  critical  of  his  own  achievements,  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  Huxley  possessed  natural  capacity 
for  speaking  of  a  very  high  order.  Seventeen  years  later 
he  wrote  to  Professor  Prestwich  : — 

'  There  is  no  doubt  public-dinner  speaking  (and  indeed  all 
public  speaking)  is  nervous  work.  I  funk  horribly,  though  I 
never  get  the  least  credit  for  it.  But  it  is  like  swimming,  the 
worst  of  it  is  in  the  first  plunge '  (i,  811). 

A  few  years  before  his  death  he  was  asked,  late  in  the 
afternoon  of  St  Andrew's  Day,  to  propose  the  health  of 
the  medallists  at  the  Royal  Society  dinner  the  same 
evening.  Throughout  the  dinner  it  was  obvious  to  those 
who  watched  him  that  he  was,  with  much  effort  and 
concentration,  preparing  for  the  fine  speech  which  he 
afterwards  made. 

Apart  from  the  natural  gift  of  speech  his  great  success 
depended  upon  his  presentation  of  the  subject  in  the 
simplest  and  clearest  manner.    We  are  told  that — 

'  an  unfriendly  critic  once  paid  him  an  unintended  compliment, 
when  trying  to  make  out  that  he  was  no  great  speaker ;  that 
all  he  did  was  to  set  some  interesting  theory  unadorned  before 


PROFESSOR    HUXLEY  277 

his  audience,  when  such  success  as  he  attained  was  due  to  the 
eomx)elling  nature  of  the  subject  itself '  (i,  407,  468). 

Certainly  no  higher  praise  could  be  bestowed  on  a  speaker 
whose  task  it  is  to  instruct  and  to  inspire  interest  than 
this :  *  He  displays  his  subject  rather  than  himself.*  Tho 
common  mistake  of  the  fluent  speaker,  who  feels  no  sense 
of  effort  or  nervousness,  is  to  cover  up  and  obscure  his  sub- 
ject by  over-indulgence  in  rhetoric.  This  explanation  of 
Huxley*s  success  probably  also  accounts  for  such  a  failure 
as  that  in  his  early  days  at  an  institute  in  St  John's 
Wood,  whose  members  petitioned  'not  to  have  that  yoiing 
man  again '  (i,  88).  The  success  of  a  lecture  rests  largely 
with  the  audience ;  and  even  now  audiences  are  to  be  found 
incapable  of  being  interested  by  a  scientific  subject,  how- 
ever clearly  it  may  be  set  before  them. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  of  Huxley's  lectures  was  delivered 
€ts  one  of  the  two  evening  discourses  at  the  meeting  of  the 
British  Association  at  York,  in  1881 :  it  is  very  inade- 
quately treated  in  the  *  life,'  where  it  is  spoken  of  as  if 'he 
had  read  a  paper  at  one  of  the  sectional  meetingfs  (ii,  34). 
He  chose  as  his  subject  the '  Bise  and  Progress  of  Palaeonto- 
logy,' and  lectured  without  a  note.  Huxley  afterwards 
told  Mr  6.  Griffith,  the  Secretary  of  the  Association,  that 
the  discourse  had  never  been  written  down  in  any  f cnrm, 
explaining,  however,  that  he  had  reflected  much  upon  the 
subject.  The  lecture  produced  a  very  deep  impression, 
and  many  must  have  felt  what  was  expressed  to  the  pre- 
sent writer  at  the  conclusion,  that  no  one  else  could  have 
presented  the  subject  as  Huxley  had  presented  it.  The 
address  was  afterwards  printed,  and  may  be  found  in 
'  Ck>llected  Essays '  (iv,  p.  24). 

It  is  not  necessary  to  consider  at  any  length  Huxley's 
power  and  style  as  a  writer  of  English.  Everyone  is 
familiar  with  it,  and  differences  of  opinion  will  exist  upon 
this  as  upon  all  questions  of  form.  Mr  Chalmers  Mitchell, 
after  an  interesting  discussion  (pp.  213-217),  concludes 
that  he  '  produced  his  effects  by  the  ordering  of  his  ideas 
and  not  by  the  ordering  of  his  words ;  ...  he  is  one  of  our 
g^eat  English  writers,  but  he  is  not  a  great  writer  of 
English.'  It  is  probable  that  the  majority  of  readers  will 
emphatically  disagree  with  this  conclusion.  The  'Life  and 
Letters '  make  it  certain  that  Huxley  felt  *  the  sedulous 


278  PROFESSOR    HUXLEY 

concern  for  words  themselves  as  things  valuable  and  de- 
lightful, the  delight  of  the  craftsman  in  his  tools/  which 
Mr  Mitchell,  in  the  absence  of  this  new  evidence,  considers 
that  he  lacked  (p.  215).  The  same  work  shows  that  the 
easy  and  pleasant  reading  of  his  compositions  meant,  as 
usual,  *  hard  writing.'  In  1854,  when  Huxley  had  been 
partially  supporting  himself  by  writing  for  some  years,  he 
said,  in  a  letter  to  his  sister  (i,  118),  *  My  pen  is  not  a  very 
facile  one,  and  what  I  write  costs  me  a  good  deal  of  trouble/ 
In  1882  he  wrote  to  Romanes  : — 

*  My  own  way  is  to  write  and  re- write  things,  until  by  some 
sort  of  instinctive  process  they  acquire  the  condensation  and 
symmetry  which  satisfies  me.  And  I  really  could  not  say  how 
my  original  drafts  are  improved  until  they  somehow  improve 
themselves '  (ii,  80). 

Within  four  years  of  the  end  of  his  life  he  wrote  to  H.  de 
Varigfny : — 

*  The  fact  is  that  I  have  a  great  love  and  respect  for  my 
native  tongue,  and  take  great  jiains  to  use  it  properly.  Some- 
times I  write  essays  half-a-dozen  times  before  I  can  get  them 
into  the  proper  shape ;  and  I  believe  I  become  more  fastidious 
as  I  grow  older'  (ii,  291). 

There  can  be  no  question  that  this  labour  of  love  and 
duty  produced  an  admirable  result.  Huxley's  essays  and 
addresses  contain  many  pages  which  for  purity,  terseness, 
vigour,  and  comprehension  of  the  English  language,  are 
hardly  to  be  surpassed  by  any  writer  of  the  Victorian  age. 

We  may  conclude  this  brief  account  of  some  aspects  of 
a  g^reat  man  with  the  words  of  Professor  E.  Bay  Liankes- 
ter  :  *  I  feel  that  the  world  has  shrunk  and  become  a  poor 
thing,  now  that  his  splendid  spirit  and  delightful  presence 
are  gone  from  it '  (ii,  423).  At  the  same  time  his  memory 
is  with  us  to  encourage  us  in  the  warfare  on  behalf  of 
science,  which  he  carried  on  so  unflinchingly,  the  struggle 
which  is  as  necessary  now,  at  the  opening  of  a  new  cen* 
tury,  as  in  the  past,  to  bring  about  the  most  favourable 
conditions  for  the  pursuit  of  truths  and  to  make  the 
people  heed  the  truth  when  it  has  been  found. 


(    279    ) 


Art.  XII.— THE  NICARAGUAN  CANAL. , 

The  rough  handling,  which  the  treaty  negotiated  by  Lord 
Pauncef  ote  and  Mr  Hay  early  in  last  year  has  experienced 
at  the  hands  of  the  United  States  Senate,  has  caused  a 
natural  feeling  of  resentment  in  this  country.  It  was 
generally  believed  that  the  attitude  which  the  British 
Government  took  up  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish-American 
War  merited  and  would  receive  some  return,  in  a  more 
sympathetic  appreciation  of  a  policy  which  has  never 
been  intentionally  hostile  to  America,  and  in  a  willing- 
ness to  meet  us  halfway  where  the  interests  of  the  two 
countries  are  opposed.  But  neither  in  Alaska  nor  yet  in 
Central  America  do  the  i>eople  of  the  United  States  appear 
disposed  to  abate  a  tittle  of  what  they  regard  as  their  strict 
rights  on  the  score  of  friendship ;  and  in  the  latter  case- 
bitterness  is  added  to  the  pill  by  the  manner  of  its  admin- 
istration. The  discourtesy  of  an  attempt  to  '  supersede* 
an  international  agreement  by  one  of  the  parties,  without 
consultation  with  the  other,  must  have  been  patent  to  a 
large  number  of  those  who  voted  in  the  majority  which 
carried  the  amendments  to  the  Hay-Pauncef ote  Treaty. 
Yet  for  some  reason  they  preferred  to  risk  the  ill-will 
which  their  conduct  might  be  expected  to  engender  rather 
than  give  effect  to  the  carefully  considered  work  of  two 
able  and  experienced  diplomatists. 

The  motives  which  decided  the  fate  of  the  treaty  were^ 
probably  extremely  diverse.  With  some  members  of  the 
Senate  the  belief  that  American  interests  demanded  the 
Americanising  of  the  canal  was,  we  do  not  doubt,  the 
main  influence.  The  vote  of  many  more  was  secured,  it 
may  be  surmised,  by  railway  interests  acting  upon  party 
organisation,  in  the  hope  that  the  transformed  treaty 
would  not  be  acceptable  to  Great  Britain,  and  that  the 
construction  of  the  canal  would  be  delayed  in  consequence. 
With  the  representatives  of  the  Western  States  of  the 
Union  it  is  possible  that  mere  disUke  of  this  country  was 
the  predominant  feeling,  and  that  they  regarded  the  pre- 
sent opportunity  of  giving  us  *  another  fall '  too  good  to  be 
lost.  The  Western  States,  which  contain  a  large  percen- 
tage of  inhabitants  of  other  than  Anglo-Saxon  origin,  have 
always  shown  more  hostility  towards  us  than  the  States 


THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL  281 

American  politicians  to  view  with  jealousy  claims  on  the 
I>art  of  other  countries  in  Central  America  which  might 
conflict  with  the  interests  of  the  United  States.  At  that 
time  the  only  fruits  which  remained  of  repeated  efforts  on 
the  part  of  William  Paterson,  the  founder  of  the  Bank  of 
England,  and  other  British  merchants,  to  found  colonies 
on  and  about  the  isthmus,  consisted  of  the  settlement  of 
British  Honduras  on  the  Guatemalan  coast,  including  a 
claim  to  the  Bay  Islands,  which  was  disputed  by  the 
States,  and  a  protectorate  over  the  eastern  sea-board  of 
Nicaragua,  which  was  inhabited  by  the  Mosquito  Indians. 

In  1846  Lord  Pahnerston,  becoming  Secretary  of  State 
for  Foreign  Affairs  on  the  fall  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  minis- 
try, commenced  a  vigorous  assertion  of  British  claims  in 
Central  America,  his  policy  being  directed  to  securing  the 
predominance  of  Great  Britain  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  San  Juan  river  and  Lake  Nicaragua.  The  vigour  with 
which  he  pushed  his  efforts  led  to  a  conflict  with  Nicar- 
agua, and  subsequently  to  a  treaty  by  which  that  State 
surrendered  to  the  Mosquitos  its  claims  to  the  town  of 
San  Juan,  now  known  as  Greytown.  The  immediate  con- 
sequence was  an  outburst  of  hostile  feeling  in  the  United 
States,  whose  Government  at  once  despatched  an  agent, 
Elijah  Hise  by  name,  to  enter  into  negotiations  with  Nicar- 
agua. Hise,  contrary  to  his  instructions,  concluded  an 
agreement  without  consulting  the  authorities  at  Washing- 
ton. By  the  terms  of  this  treaty — the  Selva-Hise  Conven- 
tion of  1849 — ^Nicaragua  undertook  to  allow  to  the  United 
States,  or  to  a  comjmny  to  which  a  charter  should  be 
g^ranted  by  the  United  States  Government,  the  exclusive 
right  to  construct  a  canal  from  the  Caribbean  Sea  to  the 
Paciflc  Ocean,  and  to  cede  so  much  land  as  might  be  re- 
quired for  the  purpose.  The  United  States  and  Nicaraguan 
warships  were  to  pass  through  the  canal  free  of  charge, 
but  for  all  other  vessels  such  tolls  were  to  be  exacted  as 
the  body  constructing  the  canal  should  deem  necessary. 
The  United  States  Government  was  to  be  permitted  to 
build  fortifications  for  the  protection  of  the  works,  and  in 
return  was  to  guarantee  Nicaragua  from  foreign  aggres- 
sion. This  treaty  was  not  ratified,  owing  to  the  convention 
made  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  in  the 
following  year. 

In  consequence  of  this  effort  to  circumvent  British 


284  THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL 

to  which  reference  has  already  been  made,  Mr  Laurence 
had  objected  to  that  claim,  and  also  to  the  British  occu- 
pation of  Oreytown.  He  maintained  that  in  order  to  give 
full  confidence  to  the  capitalists  of  Europe  and  America, 
neither  the  United  States  nor  Great  Britain  should  exer- 
cise any  political  power  over  the  Indians,  or  any  of  the 
States  of  Central  America. 

'  The  occupation  of  Greytown,'  he  said, '  and  the  attempt  to 
establish  a  protected  independence  in  Mosquito,  throw  at  once 
obstacles  in  the  way,  excite  jealousies,  and  destroy  confidence, 
without  which  capital  can  never  fiow  into  this  channel/ 

In  the  course  of  the  negotiations  the  Americans  were  very 
urgent  that  the  protectorate  should  be  surrendered,  and 
the  Mosquito  territory  incorporated  in  the  State  of  Nicar- 
agua on  such  terms  as  to  the  rights  of  the  Indians  as  should 
commend  themselves  to  the  British  Gk)vemment.  They 
asserted  that  the  governing  council  was  composed  entirely 
of  Englishmen,  and  that,  therefore,  to  maintain  the  claim 
would  look  like  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  to 
evade  her  obligations  under  the  treaty.  Lord  Palmerston 
refused  to  yield  the  point,  though  he  promised  that  no 
advantage  detrimental  to  the  United  States  should  be 
taken  by  this  country  of  her  position ;  and,  in  order  that 
there  shotdd  not  be  any  subsequent  question  with  regard 
to  this  matter,  some  words  were  added  to  the  original  draft 
at  the  instigation  of  Sir  Henry  Bulwer.  The  United  States, 
however,  continued  to  press  for  the  abolition  of  the  pro- 
tectorate, on  the  ground  that  such  a  control  *  must,  from 
the  nature  of  things,  be  an  absolute  submission  of  these 
Indians  to  the  British  Gk>vemment,  as  in  fact  it  has  ever 
been ' ;  and  that  it  was  therefore  necessarily  opposed  to  the 
spirit  of  the  treaty.  Lord  Clarendon  met  the  complaint 
by  pointing  out  that,  since  the  actual  language  of  the 
document  recognised  the  possibility  of  protection,  the  in- 
tention of  the  contracting  parties  obviously  was  '  not  to 
prohibit  or  abolish,  but  to  limit  and  restrict  such  pro- 
tectorate.' Nevertheless,  in  order  to  ease  relations  which 
were  becoming  somewhat  strained.  Great  Britain  entered 
into  agreements  by  which  she  ceded  the  Bay  Islands  to 
Honduras  in  1850,  and  the  Mosquito  coast  to  Nicaragua  in 
1860,  the  latter  State  undertaking  not  to  interfere  with 
the  internal  affairs  of  the  Indians.     The  treaty  of  1860 


THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL  28S 

was  supplemented  by  another  two  years  later ;  and  the 
privileges  reserved  to  the  Mosquitos  were  the  subject 
of  an  arbitration  between  this  country  and  Nicaragua 
in  1881,  when  the  present  Emperor  of  Austria  acted  as 
arbitrator. 

In  1880  Congress  passed  a  resolution  calling  upon 
President  Garfield  to  take  steps  to  obtain  the  abrogation 
of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty ;  and  Mr  Blaine,  who  was 
then  Secretary  of  State,  entered  into  correspondence  with 
the  British  Foreign  Office  with  a  view  to  securing  that 
object.  He  failed,  however,  £ts  did  also  his  successor,  Mr 
Freylinghuysen,  who  was  Secretary  in  President  Arthur's 
adn^istration.  The  latter,  indeed,  concluded  another 
convention  with  Nicaragua  on  lines  somewhat  similar  to 
those  adopted  in  the  treaty  of  1849  between  the  same 
parties.  Under  the  Freylinghuysen-Zevalla  Treaty,  Nicar- 
agua was  to  cede  to  the  United  States  a  strip  of  territory, 
ten  miles  wide,  for  the  site  of  the  canal,  and  the  United 
States  in  return  were  to  make  a  loan  to  Nicaragua  of 
four  million  dollars,  and  to  engage  to  protect  Nicaraguan 
territory  against  external  aggression.  But,  mainly  on  the 
ground  of  the  last  provision,  the  treaty  was  thrown  over 
when  Mr  Cleveland  came  into  power  in  1885. .  There  was 
no  farther  correspondence  between  the  British  and  United 
States  Governments  on  the  subject  until  two  years  ago. 
The  negotiations  then  begun  resulted  in  the  Hay-Paunce- 
fote  Convention  (signed  February  5th,  1900),  the  terms  of 
which  are  as  follows : — 

Art.  I.  It  is  agreed  that  the  canal  may  be  constructed  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  either 
directly  at  its  own  cost,  or  by  gift  or  loan  of  money  to 
individuals  or  corporations  or  through  subscription  to  or 
purchase  of  stock  or  shares,  and  that,  subject  to  the  pro- 
visions of  the  present  Convention,  said  Government  shall 
have  and  enjoy  all  the  rights  incident  to  such  construction^ 
as  well  as  the  exclusive  right  of  providing  for  the  regulation 
and  management  of  the  canal. 

Art.  II.  The  High  Contracting  Parties,  desiring  to  preserve  and 
maintain  the  **  general  principle  "  of  neutralisation  estab- 
lished in  Article  VIII  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty,  adopt, 
as  the  basis  of  such  neutralisation,  the  following  rules, 
substantially  as  embodied  in  the  Convention  between  Great 
Britain  and  certain  other  powers,  signed  at  Constantinople 


286  THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL 

20th  October,  1888,  for  the  free  navigation  of  the  Suez 
Maritime  Canal,  that  is  to  say : — 

1.  The  canal  shall  be  free  and  open,  in  time  of  war  as 
in  time  of  peace,  to  the  vessels  of  commerce  and  of  wiir  of 
all  nations,  on  terms  of  entire  equality,  so  that  there  ahail 
be  no  discrimination  against  any  nation  or  its  citizens  or 
subjects  in  respect  of  the  conditions  or  charges  of  traiBc» 
or  otherwise. 

2.  The  canal  shall  never  be  blockaded,  nor  shall  any 
right  of  war  be  exercised,  nor  any  act  of  hostility  committed 
within  it. 

3.  Vessels  of  war  of  a  belligerent  shall  not  revictual  or 
take  any  stores  in  the  canal  except  so  far  as  may  be  strictly 
necessary ;  and  the  transit  of  such  vessels  through  the  canal 
shall  be  effected  with  the  least  possible  delay  in  accordance 
with  the  regulations  in  force,  and  with  only  such  inter- 
mission as  may  result  from  the  necessities  of  the  service. 
Prisses  shall  be  in  all  respects  subject  to  the  same  rules  as 
vessels  of  war  of  the  belligerents. 

4.  No  belligerent  shall  embark  or  disembark  troops, 
munitions  of  war,  or  warlike  materials  in  the  canal  except 
in  case  of  accidental  hindrance  of  the  transit,  and  in  such 
cases  the  transit  shall  be  resumed  with  all  possible  despatch. 

5.  The  provisions  of  this  Article  shall  apply  to  waters 
adjacent  to  the  canal  within  three  marine  miles  of  either 
end.  Vessels  of  war  of  a  belligerent  shall  not  remain  in 
such  waters  longer  than  twenty-four  hours  at  any  one  time 
except  in  case  of  distress,  and  in  such  case  shall  depart  a« 
soon  as  possible ;  but  a  vessel  of  war  of  one  belligerent  shall 
not  depart  within  twenty-four  hours  from  the  departure  of 
a  vessel  of  war  of  the  other  belligerent. 

6.  The  plant,  establishment,  buildings,  and  all  works 
necessary  to  the  construction,  maintenance,  and  operation 
of  the  canal  shall  be  deemed  to  be  part  thereof,  for  the 
purposes  of  this  Convention,  and  in  time  of  war  as  in  time 
of  peace  shall  enjoy  complete  immunity  from  attack  or 
injury  by  belligerents  and  from  acts  calculated  to  impair 
their  usefulness  aa  part  of  the  canaL 

7.  No  fortifications  shall  be  erected  commanding  the 
canal  or  the  waters  adjacent.  The  United  States,  however, 
shall  be  at  liberty  to  maintain  such  military  police  along 
the  canal  as  may  be  necessary  to  protect  it  against  lawless- 
ness and  disorder. 

Art.  ni.  The  High  Contracting  Parties  will,  immediately  upon 
the  exchange  of  the  ratifications  of  this  Convention^  bring 


THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL  287 

it  td  the  notice  of  other  Powers  and  invite  them  to  adhere 
to  it. 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  convention  preserves  and 
amplifies  the  neutrality  clauses  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer 
Convention,  merely  modifying  the  terms  of  that  document 
(Art.  I)  as  to  the  right  of  construction  and  control :  the 
other  clauses  of  the  older  treaty  remain  intact.  To  such 
an  alteration  this  country  could  not  well  have  taken 
objection,  nor  had  it  any  disposition  to  do  so.  The  treaty 
of  1850  contemplated  the  construction  of  the  waterway 
by  private  enterprise;  but  fifty  years  of  inactivity  at 
Nicaragua  and  the  failure  of  the  Panama  Canal  Company 
seem  to  show  that  this  stupendous  task  must  be  undertaken 
by  a  nation  and  not  left  to  private  effort,  if  it  is  to  be  com- 
pleted  within  reasonable  Umits  of  time.  In  these  circum- 
stances it  would  have  been  an  impracticable  as  well  as  a 
selfish  policy  to  oppose  a  change  needful  to  American 
interests,  and  not  directly  detrimental  to  our  own. 

But  the  amendments  adopted  by  the  United  States 
Senate  have  considerably  altered  the  state  of  the  case. 
In  the  first  place,  the  Clayton-Bulwer  Convention  is  de- 
clared to  be  *  hereby  [i.e.  by  the  Hay-Pauncefote  Treaty] 
superseded.'  Secondly,  the  first  five  clauses  of  Art.  II  are 
declared  to  be  of  no  effect  in  case  the  defence  of  the 
United  States  is  in  question.  Thirdly,  the  invitation  to 
other  powers  to  become  parties  to  the  principles  set  forth 
in  the  treaties  is  cancelled.  Several  other  amendments 
were  proposed  but  rejected.  By  one  of  these  the  American 
Government  was  to  be  enabled  to  impose  discriminating 
tolls  in  favour  of  American  manufactures  and  shipping  in 
certain  cases ;  but  such  a  principle  was  too  obviously  in 
conflict  with  the  main  purpose  of  the  treaties  and  the 
general  trend  of  public  opinion  to  be  accepted  even  by 
such  a  body  as  the  American  Senate. 

Deferring  for  a  moment  the  consideration  of  these 
amendments,  let  us  consider  the  value  of  the  canal  in 
peace  and  in  war  to  the  United  States  and  to  Europe 
respectively.  Commercially,  the  project  will  not,  we  fear, 
be  an  unmixed  gain  to  the  Old  World.  Indeed,  it  is  pro- 
bably not  too  much  to  say  that  Europe  has  more  to  fear 
from  the  mere  existence  of  the  projected  waterway  than 
from  any  conditions  imposed  upon  its  usage.    We  could 


288  THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL 

not,  however,  prohibit  the  construction,  even  if  wo  wotild ; 
and  we  must  be  content  with  endeavouring  to  prevent 
any  power  from  a<^quiring  an  advantage  which  its  natural 
position  would  not  give  to  it.  We  cannot  alter  the  fact 
that  this  junction  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Oceans  will 
bring  the  manufacttiring  cities  of  the  United  States  some 
thousands  of  miles  nearer  to  the  consumer  in  China  or 
Japan  than  Manchester  and  Liverpool  are  at  present ; 
and  the  rejection  of  the  amendment  in  favour  of  dis- 
criminatory tolls  secures  us,  for  the  present  at  least, 
against  any  artificial  increase  of  the  advantage  which  will 
naturally  accrue  to  the  American  trader  in  his  dealings 
with  the  inhabitants  of  those  countries  and  of  the  western 
sea-board  of  South  America. 

So  far  as  Europe  is  concerned,  the  canal  will  afford  a 
nearer  route  to  the  Pacific  littoral  of  North  and  South 
America,  to  the  South  Sea  Islands,  and  perhaps  to  New 
Zealand.  But  the  reduction  which  it  will  effect  in  the 
distances  to  eastern  markets  will  be  all  in  favour  of  the 
United  States.  Through  the  Suez  Canal  the  ocean  route 
from  Great  Britain  is  closer  than  that  from  the  eastern 
seaboard  of  the  United  States  to  Australia,  China,  and 
Japan,  by  between  two  and  three  thousand  miles.  When 
the  Nicaraguan  canal  is  built,  the  cities  of  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  of  North  America  will  have  the  advantage  of 
us  in  point  of  distance  by  from  one  to  three  thousand 
miles  ;  and  American  merchants  and  politicians  are  look- 
ing to  this  reversal  of  space  conditions  to  assist  them 
in  reducing  British  commercial  supremacy  in  the  Far 
East.*  The  Nicaraguan  Canal  will  therefore  not  confer 
the  same  commercial  advantages  upon  Great  Britain  and 
Etirope  generally  as  it  will  on  American  manufacturers. 
European  trade  to  the  East  will  for  the  most  part  go,  as 
it  has  gone  hitherto,  through  the  Suez  Canal ;  the  factories 
on  the  eastern  coast  of  North  America  will  send  their 
goods  for  consumption  in  the  East  by  way  of  Nicaragua 
instead  of  by  Cape  Horn  or  across  country  by  rail,  thus 
saving  either  thousands  of  miles  of  sea  journey  or  the 
cost  of  trans-shipment.  In  1896  the  United  States  shipping 
passing  through  Suez  was  only  194,000  tons,  and  in  1898 

^  Cf.  the  *  Times*  for  January  10th,  1001,  published  after  this  article 
was  in  type. 


THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL  289 

less  than  316,000  tons,  out  of  a  total  traffic  of  over 
12,000,000  tons,  the  British  proportion  for  the  years  1896, 
1897,  and  1898  being  68  per  cent.,  67-3  per  cent.,  and  68-2 
per  cent.  The  proportions  of  shipping  passing  through  the 
Nicaraguan  Canal  will  doubtless  be  the  reverse  of  these. 

The  importance  of  an  isthmian  canal  to  American 
trade  cannot  be  overestimated ;  to  European  trade  it  is 
mainly  important  as  placing  an  additional  burden — that 
of  greater  distance — ^upon  it  when  competing  with  Ameri- 
can goods ;  while,  with  regard  to  European  traffic  to  the 
Pacific  coast  of  America,  which  will  naturally  seek  the 
Nicaraguan  route,  there  is  the  further  risk  of  discriminating 
tolls.  The  disadvantage  is  one  which  can  only  be  over- 
come either  by  preventing  the  construction  of  the  canal 
or  by  greater  activity  on  the  part  of  European  manu- 
facturers. The  first  method  is,  as  already  said,  out  of  the 
question ;  and  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  second 
will  prove  adequate  to  forestall  injury  to  British  com- 
merce. With  regard  to  trade  with  the  republics  of  western 
South  America  Great  Britain  at  present  heads  the  list, 
with  Germany  second,  and  the  United  States  third.  But 
Mexico  takes  by  far  the  larger  portion  of  her  imports  from, 
and  sends  the  larger  part  of  her  exports  to,  the  States ; 
and  with  the  opening  of  the  canal  we  must  expect  to  see 
the  lead  we  now  hold  materially  reduced,  and  perhaps 
superseded.  The  mere  advantage  of  proximity  will  ac- 
complish that  without  any  discriminating  rates. 

•  What  we  want,'  wrote  an  American  commercial  traveller 
to  Senator  Frye  some  years  ago,  *is  the  Nicaraguan  Canal, 
and  it  ought  to  be  completed  as  soon  as  possible,  and  be  under 
the  control  of  this  Government.  Then  we  can  sit  on  the  front 
seat  with  the  commercial  world  for  the  west-coast  trade  of 
South  America.  The  people  want  our  goods  if  they  can  get  them 
at  the  same  rates  of  freight  as  from  England  and  Germany.' 

The  fact  that  American  manufacturers  will  have  the 
advantage  of  us  without  lower  rates  of  carriage  seems  our 
best  protection  against  discrimination.  Their  view  may,  of 
course,  undergo  a  change,  but  the  defeat  of  the  amend- 
ment asserting  a  claim  to  discriminate  seems  to  show  that 
we  are  not  menaced  in  that  quarter  at  present ;  and  it  is 
not  by  any  means  impossible  that  the  States  will  modify 
their  navigation  and  tariff  laws  before  very  lonp^  «vati  if 
they  do  not  actually  become  the  free-trade  ne^ 
Vol.  193.— iVb.  385.  v 


THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL  291 

objection  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  to  British 
traflBc  taking  advantage  of  this  trade  route. 

We  may  now  consider  the  recent  amendments  to  the 
Hay-Pauncef ote  Treaty,  two  of  which  will,  or  may,  seri- 
ously affect  our  interests  in  case  of  war,  especially  of  war 
with  the  United  States.  The  proposed  supersession  of  the 
Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty  has,  from  the  manner  of  the  action, 
attracted  more  attention  than  is  justifiable.  If  we  put 
aside  the  natural  annoyance  which  we  feel  at  the  Senate's 
disregard  of  international  courtesy,  and  examine  the 
question  dispassionately,  we  shall  find  that  the  amend- 
ment makes  little  real  difference.  The  Hay-Pauncef  ote 
Treaty,  in  its  original  condition,  embodies  all  the  material 
stipulations  of  the  Treaty  of  1850  except  those  which  it 
expressly  modifies.  It  provides  for  equality  in  canal 
charges,  preserves  the  *  general  principle '  of  neutralisation, 
with  its  corollary,  the  invitation  to  other  powers  to  adhere, 
and  prohibits  both  blockade  and  fortification.  The  only 
other  important  article  in  the  earlier  treaty — ^Art.  I — ^is 
modified  by  Art.  I  and  Art.  II  (7)  of  the  later  Convention, 
which  allow  the  United  States  to  make,  regulate,  and  police 
the  canal.  It  is  true  that  Art.  I  of  the  earlier  Treaty  also 
prohibited  either  power  from*  exercising  any  dominion  over 
any  x)art  of  Central  America.'  But  this  prohibition  we  have 
practically  cancelled  by  the  modification  above-mentioned, 
for  the  United  States  cannot  make  and  control  the  canal 
without  taking  practical  possession  of  more  or  less  terri- 
tory on  either  side.*  If  the  Americans  were  eventually 
to  decide  to  annex  the  whole  of  Nicaragua — a  very  im- 
probable contingency  so  long  as  Mexico  is  independent — ^we 
could  hardly  do  anything — ^treaty  or  no  treaty — ^but  protest. 
We  may  console  ourselves  by  refiecting  that  the  removal 
of  the  prohibition  to  exercise  dominion  in  Central  America 
liberates  us  as  well  as  the  United  States,  though  we  are  not 
in  the  least  likely  to  make  use  of  the  right  thus  restored. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  supersession  of  the  Clayton- 
Bulwer  Treaty  is  a  matter  of  small  importance  to  this 
country.  International  conditions  and  other  circum- 
stances have  undergone  so  radical  a  change  in  the  last 

*  An  amendment  empowering  the  United  States  to  aoqnire  tenitorj 
a4jaeent  to  the  eanal-^whloh  would  have  practically  recogidsed  the  Frey- 
iinghnysen-Zeyalla  treaty — was  negatived,  probaUy  because  it  was  felt  to 
be  superflnons. 


THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL  298 

the  United  States  might  be  at  war,  or  with  which  there 
might  be  a  prospect  of  war,  however  distant.  The  Davis 
amendment  may  therefore  be  taken  as  practically  relieving 
the  United  States  from  all  the  disabilities  contained  in 
Art.  II,  whenever  it  may  appear  to  be  to  its  interest  to 
neglect  them. 

The  connexion  between  this  amendment  and  that  which 
cancels  Art.  Ill  is  now  clear.  If  other  powers  join  in 
guaranteeing  the  neutrality  of  the  canal,  they  may  inter- 
fere with  the  action  of  the  United  States  under  the  Davis 
amendment.  If  they  take  no  part  in  the  treaty,  they  will 
have  no  locics  standi.  The  third  amendment  substitutes 
protection — ostensibly  by  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  but  really  by  the  States  alone — ^f  or  neutralisation 
properly  so-called ;  and  the  canal  becomes  American  pro- 
perty.   The  two  amendments  stand  or  fall  together. 

That  the  value  of  the  canal  to  the  States  from  a 
strategic  point  of  view  is  immeasurably  greater  than  to 
any  European  country  it  would  be  idle  to  deny ;  and  it  is 
not  altogether  matter  for  surprise  that  the  Americans 
should  wish  to  insure  themselves  against  any  possible 
interruption  in  case  of  war. 

*With  this  canal,"  Mr  Morgan  told  the  Senate  on  one 
occasion,  *we  could  move  our  ships  of  war  ui)on  short  lines 
with  abundant  fuel,  and  concentrate  in  three  weeks  upon  our 
western  coast  a  fleet  that  we  could  not  assemble  in  three  months 
by  doubling  Cape  Horn.' 

That  this  estimate  was  not  greatly  exaggerated  was 
proved  during  the  Spanish-American  war,  when  the 
United  States  cruiser  Oregon,  arriving  at  San  Francisco 
and  receiving  orders  to  join  Admiral  Sampson's  conmiiand 
in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  was  compelled  to  make  the  journey 
round  Cape  Horn,  at  the  imminent  risk  of  capture  or  de- 
struction by  the  Spanish  fleet.  Had  a  trans-isthmian 
route  been  then  available,  the  journey  would  have  been 
accomplished  in  a  few  days,  and  much  anxiety  would  have 
been  saved.  This  incident  has  probably  given  a  great 
impulse  to  the  movement  in  favour  of  Americanising  the 
canal. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  effect  of  this  process  in  time 
of  war.  The  belligerent  groupings  of  the  powers  of  the 
world,  in  the  order  of  importance  of  the  right  of  using  the 


294  THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL 

canal  to  one  party  or  the  other,  would  seem  to  be  these : 
(a)  the  United  States  against  Great  Britain ;  (6)  the  United 
States  against  a  European  power  or  Japan ;  (c)  Great 
Britain  against  a  European  power  or  Japan ;  (d)  a  Euro- 
pean power  against  a  European  power  or  against  Japan. 

In  any  case  in  which  the  United  States  were  belligerent 
they  would  constantly  require,  for  the  reason  stated  by 
Mr  Morgan,  to  make  use  of  the  canal  for  their  ships  of 
war.  But  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  the  commander  of  a 
British  or  any  other  fleet,  whose  country  was  at  war  with 
the  United  States,  adventuring  his  vessels  into  such  a  trap 
as  the  canal  might  prove  to  be,  even  were  it  neutralised. 
In  such  a  war  both  the  warships  and  the  marine  of  the 
other  belligerent  would  naturally  seek  the  Suez  Canal, 
since,  even  supposing  neutralisation  and  the  most  perfect 
good  faith  on  the  part  of  the  American  Government,  there 
would  be  imminent  risk  of  capture  before  entering  or  on 
leaving  the  neutral  zone,  or  of  some  untoward  *  accident  * 
in  the  canal.  This  would  apply  to  Great  Britain ;  it  would 
apply  with  yet  greater  force  to  any  other  power,  inasmuch 
as  every  other  power  in  the  world  is  far  less  advan- 
tageously situated  for  attacking  the  United  States  on  the 
sea.  Even  if  the  States  had  declared  in  favour  of  com- 
plete neutralisation  of  the  canal.  Great  Britain  would, 
from  her  bases  in  the  West  Indies,  be  able  to  do  con- 
siderable damage  to  American  shipping  outside  the  zone 
of  neutrality ;  while  the  establishment  of  the  canal  on  the 
footing  of  American  property  would  enable  us  to  main- 
tain a  blockade — supposing  that  we  now  refuse  to  be 
bound  by  Art.  II  (2) — and  thus  to  render  the  route  useless 
to  American  shipping  of  all  kinds,  so  long  as  we  could  hold 
the  sea.  In  the  meantime  the  Suez  Canal  would  afford 
us  a  safe  communication  with  the  East,  unless  the  United 
States  navy  were  then  vastly  stronger  than  it  is  at 
present.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fortification  of  the  canal 
would  probably  prevent  a  coup  de  main  by  which  we 
might  hope  to  seize  one  or  other  outlet,  and  thus — even  if 
we  could  not  use  the  canal  ourselves — ^to  hinder  American 
ships  from  using  it :  and  this — ^it  can  hardly  be  doubted — 
is  the  primary  cause  of  the  demand  for  what,  as  we  have 
lihown,  practically  amounts  to  a  right  of  fortification. 

If  Gteat  Britain  were  at  war  with  a  European  power, 
dr  a  combination  of  powers,  which  could  for  a  time  block 


THE    NICARAGU.AN    CANAL  295 

the  Mediterranean  and  render  the  Suez  canal  unavailable 
for  British  ships  of  war,  the  neutralisation  of  the  route 
through  Nicaragua  would  become  important  to  us  for  the 
purpose  of  reinforcing  or  withdrawing,  if  necessary,  our 
squadrons  in  the  East  in  the  least  possible  time.  The 
same  consideration  would  apply  to  the  other  belligerent, 
although  perhaps  in  a  less  degree.  If  the  canal  is  neu- 
tralised to  the  extent  of  being  open  to  belligerent  warships 
(it  may,  of  course,  only  be  neutralised  for  the  protection  of 
trading  vessels),  this  use  could  be  made  of  it.  If  it  should 
become  solely  American  property,  or  should  only  be  neu- 
tralised in  the  lesser  degree,  belligerent  warships  would 
obviously  be  unable  to  claim  a  passage  through  it,  and 
in  going  to  or  returning  from  the  East  would  be  obliged 
to  round  Cape  Horn,  an  addition  to  the  voyage  of  not 
far  short  of  ten  thousand  miles.  In  either  case,  so  long 
as  the  United  States  remains  neutral,  the  new  condi- 
tions introduced  by  the  Davis  amendment  would,  from 
this  particular  point  of  view,  be  a  matter  of  indifference 
to  us. 

Were  two  European  powers  at  war,  the  struggle  would 
be  mainly  fought  out  on  land.  But  a  country  like 
Germany,  with  her  rapidly  growing  industrial  population, 
cannot  afford  to  neglect  the  naval  question,  and  by  her 
therefore,  even  noiore  perhaps  than  by  France  and  Russia, 
the  conditions  attaching  to  the  user  of  the  isthmian  canal 
cannot  be  viewed  with  indifference.  Should  Japan  be 
one  of  the  belligerent  parties,  the  war  would  probably  be 
conducted  mainly  in  the  East.  This  would  certainly  be  the 
case  if  Russia  were  the  other  belligerent ;  and  as  Russia 
is  the  only  power  with  which  Japan  has  at  present  any 
cause  for  serious  disagreement,  and  Japan  is  still  an  un- 
known factor  in  naval  warfare  with  European  powers, 
the  question  of  the  relation  of  the  canal  to  any  hostilities 
in  which  she  may  happen  to  be  engaged  is  hardly  ripe  for 
discussion.    At  any  rate,  this  is  not  our  concern. 

From  what  has  been  said,  it  will,  we  think,  be  clear 
that  neutralisation,  as  provided  for  by  Art.  11  of  the  Hay- 
Pauncefote  Treaty,  would  be  the  course  most  beneficial 
to  the  general  welfare  of  the  world.  To  Europe  it  would 
certainly  be  so ;  and  the  United  States  also  would,  it  is 
probable,  gain  more  [than  it  would  lose  by  assenting  to 
the  principles  which  both  Conventions  lay  down  without 


THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL  297 

practically  barring  the  canal  from  within.  Lastly,  they 
demand  that  we  shall  forgo  the  right  of  inviting  other 
states  to  join  in  guaranteeing  the  neutrality  of  the  canal. 
This  is  evidently  a  very  one-sided  arrangement.  The 
question  is — can  we  consent  to  it,  with  or  without  a  con- 
siderable quid  pi^o  quo  J^  If  we  cannot  consent  to  it,  are 
we  to  take  any  measures  to  prevent  it  ?  and  if  so,  what 
measures  ? 

There  is  no  present  menace  to  our  existing  possessions 
in  Central  America ;  but  doubtless  these,  as  well  as  our 
West  Indian  possessions,  would  be  rendered  less  defensible 
in  time  of  war,  at  all  events  of  war  with  the  United  States, 
by  the  mere  existence  of  the  canal,  even  if  neutralised — 
much  more  so  if  Americanised.  Putting  aside  the  super- 
session of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty  as  unimportant,  this 
consideration,  together  with  those  urged  above  with  regard 
to  the  other  amendments,  might  well  be  sufficient  to  induce 
us  to  refuse  our  consent.  Nor  could  we  possibly  surrender 
our  right  to  blockade  while  practically  conceding  to 
America  the  right  to  bar.  The  Davis  amendment  touches 
other  powers  beside  ourselves,  and  though  it  concerns  us 
principally,  will  hardly  be  palatable  to  them.  But  the 
Foraker  amendment  is  hardly  less  unacceptable,  for  it 
hinders  us  from  obtaining  the  support  of  other  powers  in 
opposing  measures  detrimental  to  their  interests  as  well 
as  ours.  To  consent  to  this  amendment  would  be  tanta- 
mount to  cutting  ourselves  adrift  from  Europe  in  order  to 
gratify  the  United  States,  without  getting  any  advantage 
in  return ;  in  fact,  to  throw  overboard  European  interests 
and  join,  or  rather  follow,  the  United  States  against 
Europe.  To  adopt  such  a  course  would  be  fatuous.  It  is 
hardly  conceivable  that  even  the  Senate  should  expect 
us  to  adopt  it. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  adhere  to  the  principle  of 
neutralisation,  too  much  weight  should  not  be  laid  on  the 
supposed  parallel  of  the  Suez  Canal.  There  is  little  real 
similarity  between  the  cases.  The  political  and  geogra- 
phical conditions  differ  widely  ;  and  the  neutralisation  of 
the  Suez  Canal,  while  theoretically  complete,  is  practically 
modified  by  our  position  in  Egypt  and  by  the  paramount 
importance  of  the  canal  to  our  communications  with  India. 
The  question  of  Nicaragua  should  be  settled  on  its  own 
merits,  without  reference  to  the  doubtful  precedent  of 
Vol.  193.-~iVb.  386.  x 


THE    NICARAGUAN    CANAL  299 

so  far,  be  hampered.  But  the  danger  to  Canada  from  the 
States  lies  not  in  an  attack  by  sea ;  it  is  in  her  long  and 
ex{>08ed  land-frontier.  The  canal  can  make  no  difference 
here ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  would  it  render  the  trans- 
port of  reinforcements  from  this  country  more  difficult 
than  before.  We  have  yet  to  hear  a  definite  statement 
of  Canadian  opinion;  but  these  considerations  point  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  canal  is  a  matter  of  comparative 
indifference  to  Canada.  So  far  as  they  are  touched  at  all, 
her  interests  are  at  one  with  ours ;  and  they  certainly  are 
not  touched  so  extensively  as  to  make  it  incumbent  on  us 
to  risk  a  quarrel  with  the  States  on  that  account.  There 
are  other  matters  of  Anglo-American  concern  in  which  it 
may  become  the  duty  of  Oreat  Britain  to  stand  upon  her 
strict  rights  as  guardian  of  colonial  interests.  This,  how- 
ever, does  not  appear  to  us  to  be  the  occasion ;  and  we 
should  be  sorry  to  see  the  country  driven  through  pique 
to  adopt  a  course  which  would  eventually  tell  heavily 
against  Canada  in  directions  which  are  of  more  immediate 
moment  to  her. 

Assuming,  then,  that  we  cannot  give  our  consent  to 
the  American  proposals,  and  that,  nevertheless,  our  in- 
terests are  not  sufficiently  involved  to  justify  us  in  pressing 
our  opposition  to  the  verge  of  a  quarrel,  what  policy 
remains  for  us  to  adopt  ?  We  can  still  attempt  to  bring 
European  opinion  to  bear  ;  and,  if  that  fails,  we  can  wash 
our  hands  of  the  whole  affair. 

Other  powers  are  not,  perhaps,  so  materially  interested 
as  Great  Britain,  because  they  have  not  the  same  volume 
of  trade,  or  the  same  vast  and  populous  over-sea  posses- 
sions to  consider.  Still,  this  is  a  matter  which  concerns 
the  whole  of  Europe,  and  in  which  other  nations  than 
those  at  present  negotiating  ought  to  have  a  voice. 
Several  of  them  are  already  concerned,  through  existing 
treaties  with  Nicaragua.  The  first  thing,  then,  it  appears 
to  us,  that  the  Government  of  this  country  should  do  is 
to  sound  the  chancelleries  of  Europe  as  to  their  willing- 
ness to  join  in  opposition  to  the  American  proposals.  If 
they  consent,  the  United  States  could  hardly  withstand 
the  combined  opinion  of  Europe.  If  they  refuse,  we  should 
attempt  no  more.  We  cannot  prevent  the  canal  being 
made ;  and  we  have  no  wish  to  prevent  it.  To  ask  for 
any  return  for  acceding  to  American  desires  would  be  use- 


THE 


QUARTEELY    REVIEW. 


Art.  I.— THE  CHARACTER  OP  QUEEN  VICTORIA. 

• 

The  death  of  the  most  illustrious  of  the  recent  sovereigns 
of  the  world  has  been  followed  by  an  outburst  of  resi>ect- 
f  ul  eulogy,  not  merely  from  her  own  subjects,  whose  pride, 
no  less  than  their  affection,  was  concerned  in  the  matter, 
but  also  from  independent  observers  in  all  countries,  even 
in  those  which  are,  by  old  habit  or  recent  prejudice,  hostile 
to  British  institutions,  and  to  the  rulers  of  our  Empire.  It 
has  been  gratifying  to  us  to  feel  that  the  virtues  of  Queen 
Victoria  rose  so  high  above  all  international  jealousies  as 
to  command  veneration  even  when  it  must  have  been 
grudgingly  accorded.  In  all  the  nations — ^but  particularly, 
it  should  in  justice  be  said,  in  France  and  in  America — 
that  ugly  habit  of  scolding,  from  which  we  ourselves  can- 
not  pretend  that  we  are  free,  gave  place,  at  least  momen- 
tarily, to  a  respectful  and  sympathetic  appreciation,  for 
which,  unused  as  we  are  to  these  amenities,  we  can  hardly 
be  too  grateful.  This  was  a  very  striking  tribute  to  the 
person  of  the  late  Queen,  and  one  which,  when  we  reflect 
upon  it,  must  have  arisen  more  from  a  correct  general  esti* 
mate  than  from  any  very  exact  knowledge.  The  character 
of  Her  Majesty  was  very  widely  divined ;  it  cannot  with 
truth  be  said  to  have  been  very  precisely  known.  The 
fierce  light  which  beats  upon  a  throne  has  two  effects,  the 
one  of  which  is  more  commonly  perceived  than  the  other. 
It  throws  up,  indeed,  into  brilliant  prominence,  certain 
public  features  of  the  character,  but  none  the  less  it  pro- 
duces a  dazzlement,  a  glare  of  glory,  in  the  flood  of  which 
it  is  not  easy  to  analyse  with  exactitude  t>"  '^*'- 

parts  out  of  which  that  character  U  formec 
Vol.  198.— iVb.  386.  r 


QUEEN    VICTORIA  303 

it  became.  It  has  been  customary  to  say  that  she  was 
unique,  and  this  is  in  measure  true ;  but  if  by  this  phrase 
it  is  meant  to  be  inferred  that  she  was  bom  with  an  irre- 
sistible trend  towards  personal  greatness,  like  a  Napoleon, 
or  a  Darwin,  or  a  Hugo,  it  appears  to  be  wholly  incorrect. 
The  daughter  of  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Kent  was  bom, 
we  seem  to  see,  a  rather  ordinary  mortal,  with  fine  in- 
stincts, considerable  mental  capacity,  and  a  certain  vital 
persistence  which  was  to  serve  her  well.  These  qualities, 
not  in  themselves  very  unusual,  were,  however,  educated 
by  circumstances  which  made  the  very  most  of  them,  and, 
in  particular,  which  enabled  them  to  provide  a  basis  upon 
which  rare  excellence  could  be  built  up. 

The  first  fact,  in  short,  which  we  are  required  to  recog- 
nise if  we  wish  to  comprehend  the  character  of  Queen 
Victoria,  is  that  it  was,  to  an  unusual  degree,  a  composite 
one.  It  was  not  brilliantly  full  at  some  points  and  void 
at  others ;  it  had  no  strong  lights  and  shades.  It  pre- 
sented to  the  observer  a  kind  of  mosaic,  smoothed  and 
harmonised  by  circumstances  into  a  marvellously  even 
surface.  There  was  no  one  element  in  her  mind  which 
would  certainly,  in  other  and  untoward  conditions,  have 
made  itself  prominently  felt.  It  was  this,  indeed,  which 
constituted  the  very  essence  of  her  originality,  her  com- 
{ileteness  on  so  many  sides,  her  marvellous  unity  and  effi- 
ciency, the  broad,  polished  surface  which  she  presented  to 
all  the  innumerable  difficulties  which  beset  her  path  in  life. 
It  might  be  hazarded,  as  a  paradox,  that  her  originality 
lay  in  her  very  lack  of  originality,  in  the  absence  of  salient 
eccentricity.  Her  character  was  built  up  of  elements 
which  are  usually  antagonistic,  but  which  in  her  case  were 
so  nicely  balanced  that  they  held  one  another  in  check, 
and  facilitated,  instead  of  embarrassing,  that  directness  of 
purpose  and  instinct  for  going  straight  to  the  mark,  whi«h 
w^ere  indispensable  to  success  in  her  sovereign  career. 

'  We  speak  for  the  moment  of  the  Queen's  character,  not 
as  it  had  been  in  earlier  and  more  tentative  years,  but  as 
it  has  revealed  itself,  since  the  death  of  the  Prince  Consort, 
to  those  who  have  publicly  or  privately  been  brought  into 
relations  with  her.  There  are  none  now  living  who  have 
known  this  composite  mind  of  hers  in  any  other  condition 
than  completed.  The  Liitzens  and  the  Melboumes  did 
something  to  prepare  the  surface  of  it ;  they  helped  to  fit 

Y  2 


QUSEN    VICTORIA  805 

moral  relaxation  that  she  was  exposed  to  the  danger  of 
yielding  to  prejudice,  for  in  these  conditions  obstinacy,  in 
the  true  sense,  would  take  hold  of  her.  Conscious  as  she 
was  of  the  vast  round  of  duties  in  which  she  had  to  move 
and  take  her  part,  she  was  sensitive  about  the  quantity  of 
time  and  thought  demanded  of  her  from  any  one  point. 
Hence,  if  she  thought  one  of  her  ministers  was  not 
thoughtful  in  sparing  her  unnecessary  work,  she  would 
with  difficidty  be  induced  to  believe  that  his  demands 
were  ever  essential.  She  wotdd  always  be  suspecting 
him  of  trying  to  overwork  her.  Her  prejudice  against 
Mr  Gladstone,  about  which  so  many  fables  were  related 
and  so  many  theories  formed,  really  started  in  her  con- 
sciousness that  he  would  never  acknowledge  that  she  was, 
as  she  put  it,  '  dead  beat.'  In  his  eagerness  Mr  Gladstone 
tried  to  press  her  to  do  what  she  knew,  with  her  greater 
experience,  to  be  not  her  work  so  much  as  his,  and  she 
resented  the  effort.  He  did  it  again,  and  she  formed  one 
of  her  pertinacious  prejudices.  The  surface  of  her  mind 
had  received  an  impression  unfavourable  io  the  approach 
of  this  particular  minister,  and  nothing  could  ever  in 
future  make  her  really  pleased  to  welcome  him. 

In  daily  life,  too,  the  inherent  obstinacy,  not  checked 
by  the  high  instinct  of  public  duty,  would  often  make 
itself  felt.  The  Queen  was  fond  of  a  very  regular  and 
symmetrical  order  of  life.  In  this  she  showed  her  great 
instinct  for  business,  since  her  hours  had  to  be  filled  and 
divided  with  as  rigid  a  precision  as  those  of  a  great  general 
or  the  manager  of  a  vast  commercial  enterprise.  But  the 
habit  of  regulating  all  the  movements  of  life  necessitated 
the  fixture  of  innumerable  minute  rules  of  domestic  ar- 
rangement. The  Queen  displayed  an  amazing  quickness 
in  perceiving  the  infraction  of  any  of  these  small  laws, 
and  she  did  not  reaUse  how  harassing  some  of  them  were 
to  those  who  suffered  from  their  want  of  elasticity.  There 
they  were,  settled  once  and  for  ever.  In  small  things  as 
in  great,  the  Queen  never  believed  that  she  was  or  could 
be  wrong  on  a  matter  of  principle.  This  was  an  immense 
advantage  to  her;  in  great  matters  it  was  an  advantage 
the  imxx>rtance  of  which,  in  steadying  her  will,  could 
hardly  be  over-estimated;  but  of  course  in  little  things  it 
was  sometimes  apt  to  become  what  is  colloquially  called 
'  trying.*    Again,  since  it  is  in  moments  of  physical  weak- 


806  QUEEN    VICTORIA 

ness  that  the  joints  in  every  suit  of  human  armour  dis- 
cover themselves,  so,  when  the  Queen  was  poorly  or 
exhausted,  those  around  her  were  made  to  feel  how,  with 
less  self-control,  she  might  have  appeared  arbitrary.  She 
would  be  cross  for  no  reason ;  she  would  contest  a  point, 
and  close  the  argument  without  further  discussion.  At 
these  moments  those  who  knew  her  best  could  realise 
what  a  merciful  thing  it  was  for  her  own  happiness  that 
the  immensity  of  the  field  of  her  actions  and  her  decisions 
forcibly  kept  her  mind  upon  the  very  high  plane  which 
was  its  habitual  station. 

To  form  an  accurate  opinion  of  human  beings  who 
were  presented  to  her  attention  was  so  important  a  part 
of  her  whole  function  as  a  sovereign  that  it  took  a  foremost 
part  in  her  intellectual  exercise.  She  was  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  the  importance  of  being  correct  in  her  reading 
of  character,  and  she  devoted  her  fall  powers  to  it.  In 
her  inspection  of  a  strange  minister  or  a  newly  appointed 
member  of  her  household,  she  had  a  method  well  under- 
stood by  those  who  observed  her  narrowly.  She  received 
tile  unib^miliar  person  with  a  look  of  suspended  judgment 
in  her  face.  Her  eyes  and  her  mouth  took  on  their 
investigating  aspect.  She  could  be  seen  to  be  Tnaking 
up  her  mind  almost  as  though  it  were  a  watch  which 
had  to  be  wound  up.  If  the  analysis  was  easy,  and  the 
result  of  it  satisfactory,  the  features  would  relax;  a  certain 
curious  look  of  amenity  would  pass  across  her  face.  But 
if  the  presented  type  was  complex  or  difficult,  those  who 
knew  the  Queen  extremely  well  would  perceive  that  her 
mind  was  not  made  up  after  all.  The  lines  of  the  mouth 
would  continue  to  be  a  little  drawn  down ;  the  eyes,  like 
sentinels,  would  still  be  alert  under  eyebrows  faintly  arched. 
But  sooner  or  later  she  would  succeed  in  her  analysis,  and 
an  almost  unbroken  line  of  examples  served  to  give  her 
a  justified  faith  in  her  acumen.  She  was  scarcely  ever 
wrong,  and  she  was  slow  to  admit  a  mistake.  The  judg- 
ment formed  in  that  cool  period  of  suspended  observation, 
of  which  we  have  spoken,  she  was  content  to  abide  by ;  she 
defined  the  personage  after  her  own  acute  fashion,  and 
such  as  she  had  seen  him  first  so  she  continued  to  see  him. 

This  sureness  of  judgment  was  veiled  by  a  slimplicity 
and  an  absence  of  self -consciousness  which  took  away  from 
it  the  most  formidable  part  of  such  an  ordeal.    Often, 


QUEEN    VICTORIA  3o7 

doubtless,  the  humorous  look  of  indecision  which  pre- 
ceded the  Queen's  inner  summing-up,  must  greatly  have 
baffled  the  victim  of  her  analysis.  '  What  is  Her  Majesty 
thinking  about  ? '  he  might  say  to  himself,  but  never  with 
a  sense  of  real  discomfort,  because  of  the  Queen's  complete 
freedom  from  anything  like  personal  vanity.  This  was 
once  exemplified  in  the  case  of  a  public  man  presented  to 
her  for  the  first  time.  Something  was  said  about  his 
opinion  of  the  Queen.  *  Dear  me,'  she  said,  '  I  did  not  give 
a  thought  to  that.  It  is  so  beside  the  question.  What  really 
signifies  is  what  I  think  of  him.'  If  this  initial  examination 
was  embarrassing  to  a  timid  person,  no  one  waa  so  quick 
as  the  Queen  to  observe  the  result  and  to  mitigate  any 
outward  sign  of  its  cause.  Then  aU  her  kindliness  would 
assert  itself.  To  the  awkwardness  of  real  modesty  no 
one  in  her  court  was  so  indulgent  as  herself.  Once  when 
a  man  who  was  presented  to  her  had  been  so  particularly 
clumsy  that  his  efforts  were  afterwards  smiled  at,  the 
Queen  reproved  the  merriment.  *  He  was  shy,'  she  said, 
*  and  I  know  well  what  that  is,  for  sometimes  I  am  very 
shy  myself.'  The  most  serene  and  dignified  of  women  to 
external  observation,  it  is  possible  that  indeed  Queen 
Victoria  had  a  little  secret  core  of  timidity,  for  she  was 
rather  fond  of  confessing,  with  a  smile,  to  *a  stupid 
feeling  of  shyness,'  especially  if  that  confession  could 
make  another  person  comfortable. 

Perhaps  it  should  be  noted  that  there  was  one  result 
of  the  Queen's  studied  habit  of  suspending  her  judgment 
which  was  not  entirely  convenient.  She  feared  to  commit 
herself;  and  sometimes  her  cryptic  phrases,  short  and 
vague,  with  the  drawn  lips  and  the  investigating  eyes, 
fairly  baffled  her  ministers.  They  put  before  her  State 
conundrums  to  which  she  was  not  prepared  to  g^ve  an 
inunediate  answer ;  and  she  puzzled  them  to  divine  what 
she  had  on  her  mind.  She  left  them  in  their  uncertainty, 
and  sent  them  away  bewildered.  It  would  perhaps  have 
been  convenient  if,  in  these  cases,  she  would  have  deigned 
to  admit  that  she  was  herself  undetermined* 

We  have  said  thatwhen  onceshe  hadf ormed  a  deliberate 
judgment  with  regard  to  a  person,  it  was  difficult  to  induce 
her  to  revise  it.  But  her  innate  and  yet  carefully  cultivated 
kindliness  tempered  the  severity  of  a  harsh  decision.  She 
would  moderate  her  condemnation;  p'  " 


QUEEN    VICTORIA  309 

a  habit  the  paramount  importance  of  which  she  had  seen 
very  early  in  her  career.    She  would  deign  to  justify  her 
impatience  of  dawdlers  by  saying:  *I  can't  afford  to  be 
kept  waiting.    If  I  am  to  get  through  my  work,  I  mustn't 
have  my  moments   frittered    away.'     Punctuality  was 
almost  more  than  a  habit  with  her,  it  was  a  superstition. 
She  was  really  persuaded  that  all  the  institutions  of  the 
country  would  crumble  if  her  orders  were  not  carried  out 
to  the  letter  and  to  the  instant.   Very  few  people  know  how 
superbly  she  continued  to  stand  sentry  to  the  business  of 
her  empire.    She  never  relaxed  her  hold,  she  never  with- 
drew under  the  excuse  of  sorrow,  or  weakness,  or  old  age. 
This  persistent  and  punctual  attention  to  affairs  lasted 
much  later  than  most  people  have  the  least  idea  of.    She 
did  her  business,  as  Head  of  the  State,  until  the  Thursday 
before  her  death.    Then  and  not  till  then  did  the  last 
optimism  of  those  about  her  break  down.     There  were 
amusing  instances,  in  earlier  days,  of  the  tyranny  of  her 
promptitude.    It  was  well  known,  that,  not  only  must  not 
the  Queen  be  kept  waiting  for  a  moment,  but  there  must 
be  no  hitch  in  her  service.    She  well  knew  how  much  is 
gained  to  an  organising  and  directing  mind  by  the  removal 
of  everything  that  can  vex  the  temper  or  distract  the  atten- 
tion ;  and  a  military  exactitude  as  to  times  and  seasons 
became  a  religion  with  all  those  who  waited  upon  her. 
What  she  liked  was  a  sort  of  magical  apparition  of  the 
person  wished  for,  the  moment  that  her  wish  was  formu- 
lated; and  many  were  the  subterfuges  by  which  her 
courtiers  attempted  to  become  visible  the  moment  that 
Aladdin   touched  the  lamp.    But  no  rule  is  without  an 
exception.    In  the  long  years  of  her  reign,  there  was  only 
one  individual  who  dared  to  break  the  law  of  punctuality. 
The  late  Lady  Mount  Edgcumbe  had  as  great  a  penctumt 
for  unpunctuality  as  the  Queen  had  for  the  opposite.    By 
principle,  she  was  never  quite  in  time.     Oddly  enough,  so 
devoted  was  the  Queen  to  this  noble  and  accomplished 
friend,  so  completely  did  she  enter  into  the  humour  of  the 
thing,  that  she  was  never  known  to  be  the  least  incensed 
at  it.    But  Lady  Mount  Edgcumbe  was  a  licensed  libertine, 
and  in  the  dread  circle  of  lateness  none  durst  tread  but  she. 
The  memories  of  all  those  who  have  served  her  long 
and  observed  her  closely  abound  with  instances  of  her 
genuine  humanity.    It  was  her  intense  womanliness  and 


QUEEN    VICTORIA  311 

to  the  admiration  she  had  felt  for  the  experience  of  life 
and  the  stately  tervue  of  Lord  Melbourne  and  of  Lord 
Conyngham.  These  men  belonged  in  measure  to  the 
tradition  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  they  could  recall  the 
time  when  people  wore  perukes,  and  long  silk  waistcoats, 
and  entered  drawing-rooms  delicately,  with  the  cJiapeau- 
bras  pressed  between  the  palms  of  their  hands  as  they 
bowed.  It  was  a  very  curious  chance  which  ordained  that 
the  earliest  guides  of  the  youthful  Queen  should  be  men  of 
mature  age  extremely  conservative  in  manner  and  bearing, 
carrying  about  with  them  an  elaborateness  of  conduct 
which  was  already,  sixty  years  ago,  beginning  to  be 
antiquated. 

The  consequence  was  that  the  Queen,  carefully  preserv- 
ing this  tradition  as  she  did,  and  perpetuating  it  by  her 
august  example,  retained  not  a  little  of  the  air  of  a  bygone 
age.  "Without  pedantry,  her  scheme  of  manner  was  dis- 
tinctly inore  vieiUe-cour  than  that  of  any  one  else  ili 
Europe.  In  itself  beautifully  finished,  it  offered  positively 
an  antiquarian  interest.  But  people  who  saw  her  seldom, 
or  who  were  not  accustomed  to  differentiate,  made  a  mis- 
take in  speaking  of  '  the  Queen's  beautiful  manners.'  She 
had  no  '  manners '  at  all  in  the  self-conscious  or  artificial 
sense.  Her  charm  was  made  up  df  spontaneous  kindliness 
and  freedom  from  all  embarrassment,  built  upon  this 
eighteenth-century  style  or  manner  which  she  had  in- 
herited or  adopted.  She  acted  as  a  great  lady  of  1790  might 
have  acted,  notbecause  she  set  herself  to  have  good  ^  man- 
ners,* but  because  that  was  how  great  ladies,  trained  as  she 
had  been  trained,  naturally  behaved,  with  a  perfect  grace 
based  upon  unsuspecting  simplicity.  What  was  inherent 
nature  in  her  manner  struck  recent  beholders  with  amaze- 
ment as  conscious  art;  but  what  deceived  them  Was  a 
survival  of  the  stateliness  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Her  'manner '  was  greatly  aided  by  a  trait  so  unusual 
and  so  strongly  marked  that  no  sketch  of  her  character 
could  be  considered  complete  which  failed  to  dwell 
upon  it.  It  was  perhaps  the  most  salient  of  all  her 
native,  as  distinguished  from  her  acquired,  characteristics. 
This  was  her  strongly  defined  dramatic  instinct.  Queen 
Victoria  i>ossessed,  to  a  degree  shared  with  her  by  certain 
disting^shed  actors  only,  the  genius  of  movement.  It  is 
difficult  to  know  to  what  she  owed  this.  From  t>^ « *»  i»/»r»iin ts 


QUEEN    VICTORIA  818 

course  the  person  so  distinguished  was  enchanted,  and  the 
Queen  had  made  another  friend  for  life,  and  one  whom 
she  would  never  forget.  Then  she  would  serenely  resume 
her  turn  round  the  room,  entirely  unembarrassed,  g^reatly 
interested  in  each  fresh  mind  that  was  presented  to  her. 
These  were  occasions  of  singular  interest  to  the  student 
of  her  character,  who  would  try,  but  try  in  vain,  to  de- 
cipher the  inscrutable  look  in  her  face.  It  is  impossible 
to  conceive  a  social  function  more  distressingly  set  about 
with  snares  for  an  unwary  footstep.  But  the  Queen  was 
trammelled  by  no  bourgeois  tear  of  not  doing  the  right 
thing.  She  trusted  to  the  unfailing  nicety  of  her  famous 
dramatic  instinct. 

There  are  still  a  few  who  recollect  her  demeanour  when 
she  went  to  Paris  to  greet  the  Emperor  and  Empress  of 
the  French  in  1855.  She  was  not  known  in  France ;  Parisian 
society  had  not  made  up  its  mind  whether  it  meant  to  like 
her  or  not.  Her  tiny  figure  disconcerted  the  critics,  and 
somebody  quoted  l^ile  Deschamps,  *  La  reine  »Mab  nous 
a  visits.'  Paris  decided  at  first  sight  that  it  did  not  like 
her  English  dress,  and  was  frigid  to  her  '  want  of  style.' 
But  within  a  week  Paris  was  at  the  feet  of  the  little 
great  lady.  Her  conquest  of  France  happened  at  the 
gala  performance  at  the  Opera.  Everybody  was  watching 
for  the  sovereigns,  and  the  moment  was  highly  critical. 
The  Empress  was  looking  magnificent,  a  dream  of  silken 
splendour;  the  Queen,  as  ever,  somewhat  disdainful  of 
her  clothes,  had  made  no  effort  to  shine.  But  when  the 
party  arrived  at  the  box  of  the  Opera,  her  innate  genius 
for  movement  inspired  her.  The  Empress  of  the  French, 
fussing  about  her  women,  loitered  at  the  door  of  the  box  ; 
the  Queen  of  England  walked  straight  to  the  front,  wait- 
ing for  no  help  and  anxious  for  no  attendance.  She  stood 
there  alone  for  a  moment,  surveying  the  vast  concourse 
of  society,  and  then  she  slowly  bowed  on  every  side,  with 
a  smile  which  the  most  consunmiate  actress  might  envy. 

This  was  a  great  moment,  and  the  way  in  which  it 
struck  the  French  was  extraordinary.  *La  reine  Mab' 
became  from  that  day  forth  the  idol  of  Parisian  society, 
and  *  the  way  she  did  it,'  the  consummate  skill  of  the  thing, 
was  celebrated  everywhere  by  the  amateurs  of  deportment. 
She  was  never  embarrassed ;  if  a  question  could  possibly 
be  raised  about  etiquette,  she  would  say, '  Wh 


I 


QUEEN   VICTORIA  817 

with  what  the  French  bo  aptly  term  h  fou  rire.  She  had 
no  very  cautious  sense  of  the  proper  range  of  jokes,  and 
has  been  known  to  pass  them  on  with  an  extraordinary 
rashness.  A  very  charming  element  in  her  humour,  when 
it  was  less  exuberant,  was  a  certain  kindly  shyness,  as 
though  she  were  not  quite  sure  of  being  met  half  way, 
and  yet  believed  that  she  would  be,  and,  at  all  events, 
would  venture. 

Although  so  given  to  perceive  the  risible  side  of  things, 
and,  therefore,  unprotected  against  laughter,  the  Queen 
could,  when  it  was  necessary,  perform  feats  of  endurance. 
On  one  occasion  an  embassy  from  a  leading  Oriental  power, 
never  represented  at  our  court  before,  was  to  be  received 
for  the  first  time.  The  event  was  of  some  importance, 
and  the  reception  very  ceremonious.  The  English  court, 
however,  had  not  been  prepared  for  the  appearance  or  the 
lang^uage  or  the  formalities  of  the  envoys.  From  the  very 
opening  of  the  scene,  there  was  something  inconceivably 
funny  about  everything  that  happened.  When,  at  last, 
the  ambassadors  suddenly  bowed  themselves,  apparently 
as  men  struggling  with  acute  internal  pain,  and  squeezed 
their  hands  together  in  passionate  deprecation  between 
their  knees,  the  English  court  quivered  with  merriment 
like  asx>en-leaves.  The  Queen  alone  remained  absolutely 
grave.  If  anything  betrayed  emotion,  it  was  a  deepened 
colour  and  a  more  intense  solemnity.  The  envoys  with- 
drew at  last,  with  salaams  the  most  exquisite  imaginable, 
and  then,  but  not  till  then,  the  Queen  broke  down,  saying, 
through  her  sobs  of  mirth,  *  But  I  went  through  it,  I  did 
go  right  through  it ! ' 

The  Queen  made  no  pretention  to  smartness  of  speech, 
yet  she  could  often  surprise  those  who  talked  with  her  by 
her  wit.  It  consisted,  to  a  great  degree — as,  indeed,  most 
wit  does — ^in  a  rapid  movement  of  the  speaker's  mind, 
which  dived  suddenly  and  reappeared  at  an  unexpected 
place.  Her  sincerity  led  her  to  a  quaintness  of  wording 
which  was  often  very  entertaining.  One  instance  of  this, 
among  many  which  rise  to  the  memory,  may  be  given 
here.  A  piece  of  very  modem  music  had  been  performed 
in  the  Queen's  presence,  manifestly  not  to  her  approval. 
*  What  is  that  ? '  she  asked.  *  It's  a  drinking  song.  Ma'am, 
by  Rubinstein.'  *  Nonsense,'  said  the  Queen;  'no  such 
thing!    Why,  you  could  not  drink  a  cup  of  tea  to  that/' 

Vol  IM.— A^o.  3S6.  z 


818  QUEEN    VICTORIA 

Her  sense  of  humour  was  that  of  a  strong  and  healthy 
person.  It  was  a  natural  outcome  of  the  breadth  of  her 
normal  and  wholesome  humanity.  That  she  had  a  very 
remarkable  fund  of  nervous  strength  follows  as  a  matter 
of  course  on  the  record  of  what  she  was  and  what  she 
lived  to  do.  Her  courage  was  one  of  the  personal 
qualities  of  which  her  subjects  were  most  properly  con- 
vinced; they  knew  her  to  have  a  royal  disdain  of  fear. 
One  of  the  little  incidents,  hardly  noted  at  the  time,  and 
soon  forgotten,  which  deserve  to  be  revived,  was  connected 
with  the  attack  made  upon  her  in  1850  by  Robert  Pate, 
who  struck  her  across  the  face  with  a  cane.  She  neas  on 
her  way  home  from  her  afternoon  drive,  when,  just  as 
the  carriage  turned  into  the  archway  on  Constitution 
HiU,  the  assault  was  made.  She  was  announced  to  appear 
at  the  Opera  that  evening,  and  her  frightened  ladies  said 
that  of  course  she  would  stay  at  home.  '  Certainly  not,* 
she  replied.  '  If  I  do  not  go,  it  will  be  thought  that  I  am 
seriously  hurt,  and  people  will  be  distressed  and  alarmed.' 
*  But  you  are  hurt,  ma'am.'  '  Very  well,  then  every  one 
shall  see  how  little  I  mind  it.'  The  usual  orders  were 
given,  and  at  the  proper  hour  she  appeared  in  the  theatre, 
where  the  news  of  the  attack  had  preceded  her;  the 
whole  house  was  in  consternation.  The  Queen  walked 
straight  to  the  front  of  the  royal  box,  stood  there  for 
every  one  to  see  the  red  weal  across  her  forehead,  bowed 
on  all  sides,  smiled,  and  sat  down  to  enjoy  the  play. 

On  her  last  visit  to  Dublin,  she  was  strongly  urged  to 
have  an  escort  of  cavalry  always  close  to  the  carriage. 
She  refused  point-blank.  '  Why,  if  I  were  to  show  the 
least  distrust  of  the  Irish,  they  would  think  I  deserved  to 
be  afraid  of  them.'  Under  no  conditions  did  she  ever  show 
the  slightest  panic  or  any  fear  for  her  own  person.  When 
the  Fenian  troubles  were  at  their  height,  there  was  an 
idea  that  an  attempt  would  be  made  to  kidnap  the  Queen 
from  Osborne,  and  she  was  consulted  as  to  stejis  to  be 
taken  for  her  further  protection.  She  laughed  aloud  and 
put  the  proposals  by.  *Poor  things,'  she  said,  'if  they 
were  so  silly  as  to  run  away  with  me,  they  would  find  me 
a  very  inconvenient  charge.' 

The  attitude  of  Queen  Victoria  towards  religion  formed 
a  very  interesting  element  in  the  composition  of  her 
character.    It  was  two-fold,  the  political  and  the  personal* 


QUEEN    VICTORIA  310 

and  these  two  never  clashed.  The  political  side  can  ecisily 
be  defined.  She  accepted,  without  discussion,  the  paradox 
that  she  was  the  head  of  two  more  or  less  antagonistic 
religious  bodies.  It  did  not  trouble  her  at  all  that  at 
Carlisle  she  was  the  official  representative  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  and  a  few  minutes  later,  at  Lockerbie,  she  had  be- 
come the  official  representative  of  Scottish  Presbyterianism. 
This  she  not  merely  did  not  question,  but  its  discussion 
annoyed  her ;  she  did  not  permit  any  trifling  with  the 
subject.  She  considered  her  political  relation  to  the 
national  religions  exactly  as  she  treated  her  headship  of 
the  army  or  the  navy.  It  was  a  constitutional  matter, 
which  she  never  dreamed  of  disputing.  To  have  asked 
how  it  coincided  with  her  personal  inner  convictions 
would  have  seemed  to  her  like  asking  her  if  she  had  ever 
served  as  a  soldier  or  a  sailor.  She  was  Queen  of  Great 
Britain,  and  the  sovereigns  of  this  coiintry  were  hecids  of 
its  two  national  churches.  She  wished  to  be  kind  to  her 
Catholic  subjects  in  the  same  way ;  '  I  am  their  Queen, 
and  I  must  look  after  them,'  she  said.  She  would  have 
been  quite  prepared  to  be  the  religious  head  of  her 
Mohammadan  and  her  Buddhist  subjects  in  India,  in  the 
same  professional  way.  She  looked  upon  these  things  as 
part  of  the  business  of  her  statecraft,  and  never  allowed 
the  matter  to  trouble  her  conscience. 

Of  her  personal  religion  it  behoves  us  to  speak  with  great 
reserve  and  with  deep  respect.  Yet  it  was  so  prominent 
a  feature  of  her  character  that  we  are  not  justified  in 
excluding  it  from  our  study.  Be  it  simply  said,  then,  that 
in  Her  Majesty  the  religious  life  was  carried  out  upon  the 
plainest  Christian  lines,  without  theological  finesse,  and 
without  either  vacillation  or  misgiving.  She  never  dis- 
puted about  questions  of  faith;  she  never  dwelt  on  its 
circumstances.  She  was  always  very  shy  of  airing  her 
convictions,  and  had  something  of  the  old  eighteenth- 
century  shrinking  from  what  she  called  ^enthusiasm.' 
She  desired  above  all  things  to  avoid  the  appearance  of 
cant,  and  brought  to  the  discussion  of  religion,  as  of  all 
other  things,  that  exquisite  spirit  of  good  breeding  of 
which  she  was  the  acknowledged  mistress.  It  may  be 
hazarded  that  the  forms  of  service  in  which  she  found 
most  satisfaction  were  those  of  the  Presbyterian  Cb"~»^ 
But  she  never  discussed  thenif  and  never  was  at  j 

z  2 


f 
^ 


/ 


820  QUEEN    VICTORIA 

defend  them.  If  by  chance  some  ardent  theologian  in 
Scotland  should  find  it  irresistible  in  the  Queen's  private 
presence  to  spUt  hairs  and  insist  upon  subtle  shades  of 
dogma,  he  was  listened  to  but  not  answered.  Presently 
the  collie-dog  would  yawn,  and  the  Queen  would  faintly 
smile ;  if  the  divine  was  a  wise  man,  he  would  accept  the 
criticism.  The  Queen — ^it  must  be  admitted — ^had  no 
leaning  to  theological  discussion,  and  not  much  curiosity 
about  creeds. 

Preachers  not  unfrequently  made  the  g^reat  mistake  of 
setting  their  sermons  directly  at  Her  Majesty.    This  was 
never  approved  of,  and  even  when  it  was  done  in  a  round- 
about way  it  was  sure  to  be   discovered.    The  Queen 
greatly  preferred  a  direct  appeal  to  the  congregation  in 
general;  she  liked  to  merge  herself  with  the  others — ^to 
be  forgotten  by  the  preacher,  except  as  one  among  many 
souls.    References  to  her '  vast  empire '  and  her '  sovereign 
influence  over  millions  of  men '  always  gave  offence.     *  I 
think  he  would  have  done  better  to  stick  to  his  text»*  she 
would  say.    She  had  no  love  for  any  sort  of  excess ;  she 
discouraged  asceticism  as  a  branch  of  the  'enthusiasm' 
that  she  dreaded;  she  did  not  approve  of  long  services, 
and  would  sometimes  scandalise  the  minister  by  indicat- 
ing, with  uplifted  fan,  that  the  sermon  was  getting  too 
lengthy.    She  said  of  one  clergyman, '  I  think  he  would 
do  better  if  he  did  not  look  at  me.    He  catches  my  eye, 
and  then  he  cannot  stop.'    The  Queen  disapproved  of 
proselytism  in  the  court ;  she  would  allow  no  distribution 
of  tracts,  no  prope^ation  of  fads  and  '  peculiar  opinions.' 
There  was  no  reason  why  there  should  be  any  sects,  she 
thought,  and  no  proof  that  modem  i)eople  were  any  wiser 
about  morals  than  their  forefathers.    She  was  a  Broad 
Churchwoman,  in  the  true  sense,  and  her  attitude  towards 
dogmatic  religion  was  a  latitudinarian  one,  though  perhaps 
she  would  have  disliked  it  being  defined  in  that  way.    In 
the  old  Tractarian  days  she  felt  a  certain  curiosity  in  the 
movement,  but  when  Lady  Canning  tried  to  convert  her 
to  High  Church  views,  the  Queen  was  very  angry.     It 
rather  set  a  mark  in  her  mind  against  a  person  that  he 
or  she  was  a  ritualist.    It  was  always  an  element  in  her 
reticence  with  regard  to  Mr  Gladstone,  that  he  was  too 
High  Church ;  '  I  am  afraid  he  has  the  mind  of  a  Jesuit,' 
she  used  to  say.    She  liked  Rdman  Cattholics  very  much 


QUfi£N    VICTORIA  821 

better  than  Anglican  ritualists,  partly  because  she  bad  a 
respect  for  their  antiquity,  and  i)artly  because  she  was 
not  the  head  of  their  Church,  and  so  felt  no  responsibility 
about  their  opinions.  She  had  foreign  Roman  Catholic 
friends  with  whom  she  sometimes  spoke  on  religious 
matters  with  a  good  deal  of  freedom.  Her  knowledge  of 
many  phases  of  modem  religious  thought  wa^  rather 
yag^e;  and  when  the  creed  of  the  Positivists  was  first 
brought  to  her  notice,  she  was  extremely  interested. 
•  How  very  curious,'  she  said,  *  and  how  very  sad  1  What 
a  pity  somebody  does  not  explain  to  them  what  a  mistake 
they  are  making.  But  do  tell  me  more  about  this  strange 
M.  Comte.' 

The  religious  position  of  the  Queen,  as  a  human  being, 
can  be  very  simply  defined.  The  old  peasant  at  her 
cottage-door,  spelling  out  a  page  of  the  Bible,  was  an 
image  that  particularly  appealed  to  her.  She  was  full  of 
beautiful  and  perfectly  simple  devotional  feelings;  she 
-was  confident  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  She  looked  upon 
herself  quite  without  disproportion,  not  as  a  Queen,  but 
as  an  aged  woman  who  had  been  sorely  tried  by  anxiety 
and  bereavement,  and  by  the  burden  of  responsibility,  but 
who  had  been  happy  enough  to  see  through  it  all  that  it 
was  the  will  of  Gk>d,  and  to  feel  that  that  lightened  the 
load.  It  was  her  cardinal  maxim  that  all  discomfort 
comes  from  resisting  that  will.  To  her  parish-priests 
she  always  showed  particular  kindness;  and  some  she 
honoured  with  her  confidence.  Dean  Wellesley,  in  many 
ways  like-minded  with  herself,  was  long  her  trusted  con- 
fidant. Nephew  of  the  great  Duke,  he  was  a  noble  type 
of  the  enlightened  statesman-priest,  and  he  was  the  latest 
survival  of  all  those  men  who  were  grouped  around  the 
Queen  in  her  early  youth.  He  exercised  a  paramoimt 
authority  in  matters  of  Church  preferment,  where  the 
Queen  never  questioned  his  wisdom,  for  she  had  proved 
him  to  be  raised  above  all  sectarian  prejudice  by  his 
remarkable  elevation  of  character.  Dean  Wellesley  was 
aware  of  the  importance  of  his  advice  to  the  Queen,  and 
he  refused  bishopric  after  bishopric  from  unwillingness  to 
leave  her.  At  his  death,  in  1882,  she  was  deeply  afflicted. 
No  later  chaplain  could  hoi>e  to  exercise  quite  the  same 
power  as  Dean  Wellesley ;  but  Dr  Davidson  (the  present 
Bishop  of  Winchester),  who,  after  a  short  interval,  sue- 


822  QUEEM   VICTORIA 

ceeded  him  in  the  Deanery,  obtained  in  later  years  an 
influence  closely  resembling  that  of  his  predecessor.  In 
the  Established  Church  of  Scotland,  no  minister  received 
clearer  marks  of  Her  Majesty's  favour,  and  none,  it  may 
be  added,  deserved  them  better,  than  Dr  Norman  Macleod, 
whose  elevated  and  lovable  character,  compounded  of 
strength  and  tenderness,  good  sense,  humour,  and  sym- 
pathy, was  animated  by  a  form  of  religion  specially 
attractive  to  the  Queen. 

Perfect  as  she  was  in  a  regal  and  political  aspects  filling 
more  than  adequately  an  astonishing  number  of  offices, 
it  wa^  yet  inevitable  thai  there  should  be  sides  of  life  in 
which  Queen  Victoria  was  not  inclined,  or  was  not,  let  us 
boldly  admit  it,  competent  to  take  a  leading  i)art.  Such 
shining  qualities  as  hers  could  not  but  have  their  defects, 
and  it  is  the  poorest-spirited  obsequiousness  to  pretend 
that  they  had  not.  No  one  brought  a  greater  tact  to  the 
solution  of  the  questions,  What  can  I,  and  what  can  I 
not  do  ?  than  did  her  late  Majesty.  When  it  came  to  her 
asking  herself.  Can  I  be  a  leader  of  intellectual  and 
aesthetic  taste  ?  she  promptly  decided  that  she  could  not, 
and  she  did  not  attempt  the  impossible  task.  It  may  be 
admissible  to  regret,  or  not  to  regret,  that  the  Queen  did 
not  take  the  lead  in  the  advancement  of  literature  and 
art  among  her  i>eople.  It  may  be  a  not  insufficient 
answer,  founded  upon  absolute  common-sense,  to  say  that 
she  had,  literally,  not  leisure  enough  to  do  everything, 
and  that  she  very  wisely  diverted  her  attention  from 
those  subjects  in  which,  as  a  leader,  she  might  have  failed. 
She  had  no  time  to  fail ;  consequently,  if  there  was  the 
least  doubt  concerning  her  ability  in  any  one  direction, 
there  it  was  useless  to  push  on. 

This  was  particularly  the  case  in  regard  to  literature. 
She  saw  a  vast  and  gprowing  work  being  performed  by 
her  subjects,  and  she  did  not  feel  that  she  was  in  touch 
with  it.  She  accordingly  left  it  alone,  and  had  the  wisdom 
not  to  attempt  to  patronise  what  she  was  not  sure  of  com- 
prehending. If  we  are  content  to  examine  her  personal 
tastes  and  predilections,  they  were  not  brilliant,  but  they 
did  no  discredit  to  her  understanding.  She  was  naStve 
about  the  books  she  read,  which  were  mainly  novels  and 
travels.  Walter  Scott  was  her  favourite  author ;  but  she 
had  a  great  partiality  for  Jane  Austen.    The  Prince  Con- 


QUEEN    VICTORIA  828 

sort  was  an  enthusiastic  student  of  George  Eliot,  and  he 
persuaded  the  Queen  to  read  her  books ;  she  continued, 
perhaps  x>artly  for  the  Prince's  sake,  to  express  great  ad- 
miration for  them.  The  Queen  had  no  real  feeling  for 
I>oetry,  although  she  professed  a  cult  for  Tennyson, 
founded  upon  her  emotional  interest  in  his  'In  Memo- 
nam.'  More  modem  authors  received  Uttle  attention 
from  her ;  and  the  stories  current  of  the  Queen's  particular 
interest  in  this  or  that  recent  writer  may  be  dismissed  as 
the  fables  of  self-advertisement.  She  would  sometimes 
begin  a  book,  at  the  earnest  request  of  one  of  her  ladies, 
who  would  immediately  write  off  to  the  author :  *  I  am 
happy  to  tell  you  that  the  Queen  is  now  deep  in  your 
"  Prodigies  of  Passion  " ' ;  but  the  correspondent  would  fail 
to  mention  that  Her  Majesty  had  tossed  it  away  when 
she  reached  the  fifth  page.  She  would  be  very  full  of  a 
book  of  information  while  she  was  studying  it,  would  be 
riveted  by  particular  anecdotes,  and  would  quote  them 
eagerly. 

It  could  not  with  truth  be  said  that  her  interest  in  art 
was  much  more  acute.  Here  again,  it  was  always  her 
instinct  that  guided  her  rather  than  cultivated  knowledge. 
She  never  took  the  right  kind  of  interest  in  the  beautiful 
objects  she  possessed  in  her  palaces,  and  it  is  mere  courtly 
complaisance  to  pretend  that  she  did.  In  painting,  two  or 
three  foreigners  pleased  her,  and  she  rang  the  changes  on 
their  productions.  In  portraiture  she  greatly  preferred 
likeness  to  artistic  merit,  and  it  was  this  that  kept  her 
from  employing  some  of  the  grtot  Englishmen  of  her 
reign.  The  Queen  was  entreated  to  sit  to  Mr  G.  F.  Watts, 
but  in  vain.  When  it  was  argued  that  he  would  produce 
a  splendid  painting,  she  would  say :  *  Perhaps  so,  but  I  am 
afraid  it  would  be  ugly.'  Lady  Canning,  at  the  time  of  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  revival,  tried  very  hard  to  lead  the  Queen's 
taste  into  fresh  channels,  and  to  woo  it  away  from  its 
cold  (German  traditions ;  but  she  did  not  succeed.  Frankly, 
the  Queen  did  not  care  about  art.  She  did  not  attempt  to 
become  acquainted  with  the  leading  English  artists  of  her 
time.  The  only  studio  of  a  master  that  she  ever  visited 
was  that  of  Leighton,  whose '  Procession  of  Cimabue '  the 
Prince  Consort  had  bought  for  her,  and  whom  she  thought 
delightful,  though  perhaps  more  as  an  accomplished  and 
highly  agreeable  comtier  than  as  a  painter. 


824  QUEEN   VICTORIA 

Her  attitude  to  music  and  to  drama  was  much  more 
interesting,  though  very  simple.  She  had  a  sweet  soprano 
voice,  and  had  been  trained  by  Costa  to  produce  it  prettily. 
She  was  very  modest  and  even  deprecatory  about  this  ac- 
complishment of  hers,  in  which,  however,  she  acquitted 
herself  charmingly.  Her  favourite  musician  was  Mendels- 
sohn, who  had  greatly  pleased  her  in  early  days  as  a  man. 
She  would  have  nothing  to  say,  until  quite  late  in  life,  to 
Wagner  or  Brahms,  and  once  dismissed  them  all  in  one  of 
her  abrupt  turns  of  conversation,  'Quite  incomprehen- 
sible ! '  *  I'm  bored  with  the  Future  altogether,'  she  used 
to  say,  *  and  don't  want  to  hear  any  more  about  it.'  She 
was  not  more  partial  to  some  of  the  old  masters,  and  once 
closed  a  musical  discussion  by  saying,  *E[andel  always 
tires  me,  and  I  won't  pretend  he  doesn't.'  She  carried 
out  her  aversion  to  the  last,  and  forbade  that  the  Dead 
March  in  '  Saul '  should  be  played  at  her  funeral 

At  the  play  she  must  always  have  been  a  charming 
companion,  her  attention  was  so  gaily  awakened,  her 
spirits  so  juvenile.  She  was  fond  of  drama,  even  of  melo- 
drama, and  let  herself  become  the  willing  victim  of  every 
illusion.  Sometimes  she  put  on  a  little  sprightly  air  of 
condescension  to  a  companion  presumably  ignorant  of 
stage  affairs:  *Now  listen,  carefully.  Tou  think  that 
woman  is  the  housekeeper,  but  you  wait  and  see.'  And 
at  the  denouements  the  Queen  was  always  triumphant: 
*  There !  you  didn't  expect  that,  did  you  ? '  She  thoroughly 
enjoyed  a  good  farce,  and  laughed  heartily  at  the  jokes. 
She  delighted  in  Italian  opera,  and  when  she  liked  a  piece, 
she  steeped  herself  in  every  part  of  it,  the  melody  and  the 
romance,  and  heard  it  over  and  over  until  she  knew  the 
music  by  heart.  *  Norma '  was  a  great  favourite ;  and  in 
later  years  Galv^  won  her  heart  in  'Carmen,'  to  which 
oi>era — ^music,  plot,  and  everything — ^the  Queen  became 
absolutely  devoted.  And  the  pieces  of  Gilbert  and  Sullivan 
were  an  endless  delight  to  her ;  she  would  even  take  a  part 
in  these,  very  drolly  and  prettily.  No  one  could  form  a 
more  symjiathetic  audience,  whether  in  music  or  drama, 
than  the  Queen.  She  gave  her  unbroken  attention  to  the 
performer,  and  followed  whatever  was  being  done  with  an 
almost  childish  eagerness.  If  the  tenor  began  to  be  in  the 
least  heavy,  the  Queen  would  be  observed  to  fidget,  as 
though  hardly  restrained  from  breaking  into  song  herself ; 


326  QUEEN    VICTORIA 

amusing  incidents  occurred  in  connexion  with  this  sacred 
object.  When  Sir  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton  first  dined  with 
the  Queen,  he  strolled  about  the  drawing-room  afterwards 
so  freely  that  Her  Majesty  whispered  in  agitation,  *  If  you 
don't  do  something  to  attract  his  attention,  in  another 
minute  he'll  be — on  the  rug ! ' 

But  although  the  rule  of  the  court  in  these  matters 
was  so  absolute,  and  its  habits  intensely  conservative,  the 
Queen's  private  manner  was  never  affected  by  it,  even  on 
these  stately  occasions.  Sometimes  the  court,  on  arriving 
in  the  drawing-room  after  dinner,  would  form  a  Bemi-<5ircle 
around  the  Queen,  and  stand  while  she  spoke  to  one  after 
another.  There  was,  of  course,  no  other  talk.  When  this 
ordeal  was  over,  the  Queen  would  take  her  flight  to  the 
sofa,  where  the  Duchess  of  Kent  was  already  seated  at  a 
round  table  at  her  game  of  cards.  The  formality  of  the 
evening  would  then  subside,  and  the  Queen  would  be  once 
more  the  charming  easy  companion  with  whom  her  ladies 
had  gone  sketching  in  the  park  in  the  morning. 

The  Queen  was^  sometimes  a  little  nervous  lest  x>oople 
whom  she  did  not  know  well  should  be  tempted  to  take  a 
liberty.  Of  course,  as  years  rolled  on,  this  became  a  more 
and  more  utterly  incredible  supposition,  but  in  old  years 
more  than  one  dinner-party  at  Windsor  was  spoiled  by  it. 
At  the  shadow,  or  less  than  the  shadow,  of  an  undue  free- 
dom, she  would  freeze,  and,  in  aU  probability,  not  thaw 
again  through  the  course  of  the  dinner.  She  had  a  droll 
way  of  referring  to  these  mischances,  for  which  she  had 
always  the  same  formula;  she  used  to  say,  'I  chose  to 

have  a  headache  last  night.    I  am  not  quite  sure  that 

is  discreet.'  This  was  a  favourite  word  with  the  Queen, 
and  she  used  it  in  a  variety  of  meanings.  It  meant  well- 
bred,  and  it  meant  tactful ;  and  it  meant  personally  or 
instinctively  agreeable  to  Her  Majesty.  It  was  rather  a 
dreadful  moment  when  she  said  that  somebody  was  *  not 
discreet.'  Her  favourite  form  of  showing  displeasure  for 
want  of  discretion  was  to  leave  off  asking  the  indisoreet 
person  to  dinner.  The  Queen  invariably  selected  her  own 
dinner  list;  and  people  who  had  unconsciously  offended 
found  out  their  error  by  not  being  asked  for  several  suc- 
cessive nights.  In  process  of  time  their  sin  would  be  par- 
doned, and  the  sign  of  it  would  be  the  reappearance  of  the 
name  on  the  dinner  list. 


QUEEN    VICTORIA  327 

She  had  a  very  fine  mstinct  for  good  breeding,  but  this 
did  not  prevent  her  from  being  sometimes  a  prey  to  vulgar 
toadies.  People  would  enlist  her  sympathies  for  some  de- 
cayed relation  of  their  own,  and  the  Queen  would  become 
violently  interested.  If ,  as  not  unfrequently  was  the  case, 
the  personage  proved  disappointing,  she  would  often  be 
exceedingly  forbearing.  *  Not  very  pretty  manners,  poor 
thing  1  Well,  well  I '  she  would  say,  and  that  would  be  the 
end  of  it.  On  the  whole,  she  did  not  resent  this  common- 
ness of  manner  so  much  as  she  did  lofty  behaviour.  She 
looked  askance  at  pretentious  people,  and  in  this  direction 
she  was  certainly  sometimes  tempted  to  injustice.  She 
was  always  a  little  afraid  of  '  clever '  women ;  and  a  repu- 
tation for  superior  intelligence  was  no  recommendation 
in  her  eyes.  She  liked  the  ladies  about  her  to  have  ex- 
tremely good  manners  and  a  pretty  presence,  but  she 
shrank  away  from  any  woman  who,  she  feared,  was  *  going 
to  be  clever.'  It  had  been  very  early  instilled  into  her 
that  it  was  man's  province  to  be  clever,  and  that  it  was 
much  best  for  woman  not  to  intrude  into  it. 

The  men  with  whom  she  had  been  principally  brought 
into  contact  at  the  beginning  of  her  reign  had  not  been 
remarkable  as  a  group  for  their  mental  cultivation.  There 
seems  to  be  no  doubt  at  all  that  the  'man  of  the  world'  of 
fifty  years  ago  was  in  every  respect  a  more  ignorant  being 
than  he  would  be  if  he  flourished  to-day.  Not  merely  did 
he  not  know  much,  but  it  was  a  point  of  honour  with 
him  to  conceal  what  little  he  did  know.  The  wives  and 
daughters  of  these  noblemen  surrounded  the  yotmg  Queen, 
and  impressed  upon  her  the  idea  of  what  English  women 
ought  to  be.  In  the  course  of  time.  Prince  Albert  appeared 
upon  the  scene,  with  his  head  full  of  the  precepts  of  Count 
Btockmar,  his  store  of  German  cultiu*e,  and  his  genuine 
taste  for  science  and  philosophy.  The  Queen  was  parti- 
ally converted  to  the  Prince  Consort's  views ;  not  merely 
was  she  proud  of  his  attainments,  but  she  admitted  to 
herself  that  it  was  proper  that  there  should  be  cultivated 
and  learned  men,  who  should  walk  in  line  with  the  Prince. 
But,  as  regards  women,  she  retained  her  preconceived 
ideal.  She  would  certainly  never  have  allowed  that  every 
action  of  theirs  could  be  analysed  under  one  of  three 
categories,  as  it  was  said  that  Stockmar  had  persuaded 
Prince  Albert  to  believe. 


880  QUEEN    VICTORIA 

checked  any  exaggerated  expression  of  personal  affection 
the  moment  that  it  was  threatened. 

The  Queen,  full  of  warmth  and  human  tendemess  as 
she  was,  and  surrounded  all  her  life  by  persons  deeply 
devoted  to  her,  to  whom  she  was  deeply  attached,  was 
singidarly  without  what  could  truly  be  called  friends.  The 
atmosphereof  her  lif ewas  too  much  charged  withf ormality 
to  allow  of  what  could  deserve  the  name  of  a  deep  personal 
friendship  between  herself  and  any  of  her  subjects.  No 
one,  it  was  made  apparent,  was  ever  quite  necessary  to 
her;  the  indispensable  person  did  not  exist.  Lady  Canning 
used  to  warn  enthusiastic  novices  of  the  danger  of  culti- 
vating any  illusion  on  this  point.  She  would  say,  *  Tou 
will  be  delighted  with  your  waiting  at  Balmoral  or  at 
Osborne.  You  will  see  the  Queen  intimately,  riding, 
dancing,  playing,  dining.  You  will  think  she  cannot  get 
on  without  you.  And  then  you  will  come  back  one  day  to 
Windsor,  and  somebody  else  will  take  your  place,  and  you 
will  have  become — a  number  on  the  list.*  Undoubtedly, 
in  her  ripe  wisdom,  the  Queen  encouraged  this.  She  desired 
above  all  things  to  keep  the  society  immediately  around 
her  person  on  a  serene  and  even  footing.  There  must  not 
be  the  least  approach  to  favouritism;  and  she  would  check 
herself  first  of  all  if  she  discovered  a  tendency  in  her  ois^-n 
manner  to  encourage  one  person  at  the  expense  of  another. 
But,  in  truth,  her  engrained  professional  habit  made  her 
free  of  all  her  ladies. 

It  is  matter  of  ancient  history  that  in  1839  the  Queen 
waged  a  determined  battle  with  Sir  Robert  Peel  on  the 
subject  of  the  appointment  of  her  bedchamber  women. 
He  offered  his  resignation,  and  she  accepted  it  without 
the  least  compunction.  It  is  not  so  well  known  that  she 
failed  in  her  second  and  parallel  controversy,  about  her 
private  secretary.  No  Government  would  hear  of  creating 
any  such  appointment,  and  the  post  continued  to  be  offici- 
ally unrecog^sed  until  the  very  close  of  her  reign.  It  was 
none  the  less  powerful,  however,  for  being  unofficiaL  In 
Baron  Stockmar*s  letters  to  the  Prince  Consort,  he  acutely 
points  out  how  the  Prince  may  best  serve  the  Queen,  by 
acting  as  her  private  secretary.  He  tried  to  do  tiiis,  with 
the  help  of  O.  E.  Anson;  of  course  the  result  was  that 
the  unseen  man,  of  professional  knowledge  and  habits, 
became  the  moving  spirit.    It  continued  to  be  so  after 


QUEEN.  VICTORIA  837 

work  required  of  her  was  twice  as  great  as  it  had  been 
on  her  earlier  visit.  She  did  her  very  best  to  win  the 
affection  of  the  Irish,  but  the  effort  fatigued  her  much. 
She  was  carried  through  it  all  by  her  enjoyment  of  the 
wit  and  gaiety  of  the  crowd.  She  kept  on  saying,  *  How 
I  delight  in  the  Irish  I ' 

In  closing  this  brief  study  of  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able personalities  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  few  words 
must  not  be  omitted  dealing  with  the  Queen's  attitude 
towards  her  own  regal  i)Osition.  No  one  ever  accepted 
her  fate  with  a  graver  or  more  complete  conviction.  It 
is  possible  that  if  her  signature  had  been  required  to 
a  declaration,  on  paper,  of  her  belief  in  the  divine  right 
of  kings,  she  would  have  thought  it  prudent  to  refuse  to 
sign;  but  in  her  own  heart  she  never  questioned  that 
she  was  the  anointed  of  the  Lord,  called  by  the  most 
solemn  warrant  to  rule  a  great  nation  in  the  fear  of  Grod. 
She  was  fond  of  the  word  *  loyalty,'  but  she  used  it  in  a 
sense  less  lax  than  that  which  it  bears  in  the  idle  parlance 
of  the  day.  When  the  Queen  spoke  of  her  subjects  as 
'  loyal,'  she  meant  it  in  the  medisaval  sense.  The  relation 
was  not,  in  her  eyes,  voluntary  or  sentimental,  but  im- 
perative. If  she  had  been  a  wicked  or  a  foolish  woman, 
it  would  have  been  very  sad ;  but  the  duty  of  obedience 
would,  in  her  idea,  have  been  the  same.  Subjects  must 
be  'loyal';  if  they  loved  their  sovereign,  so  much  the 
better  for  them  and  for  her,  but  affection  was  not  essen- 
tial. In  her  phraseology  this  constantly  peeped  out — '  I, 
the  Queen,'  *tny  i>eople,'  *niy  soldiers.'  She  regarded 
herself,  professionally,  as  the  pivot  round  which  the 
whole  machine  of  state  revolves.  This  sense,  this  i)erhaps 
even  chimerical  conviction  of  her  own  indispensability, 
greatly  helped  to  keep  her  on  her  lofty  plane  of  daily, 
untiring  duty.  And  gradually  she  hypnotised  the  public 
imagination,  so  that  at  last,  in  defiance  of  the  theories  of 
historic  philosophers,  the  nation  accepted  the  Queen's 
view  of  her  own  functions,  and  tacitly  concluded  with  her 
that  she  ruled,  a  consecrated  monarch,  by  Right  Divine. 


340  BRITISH    AGRICULTURE 

and  in  the  directions  which  science  was  giving  for  their 
advantage,  the  contemporaries  of  Caird  were  far  better 
off  than  those  of  Young. 

Caird  found  very  little  draining  with  tiles  being  done 
in  1850  in  some  counties,  except  by  advanced  landowners, 
although  Smith  of  Deanston's  new  system  had  been  per- 
fected by  Parkes,  with  the  help  of  the  cylindrical  pipes 
which  Reed  introduced  in  1843,  made  by  a  machine  invented 
by  Scraggs.  Tile  drainage,  however,  was  carried  on  ex- 
tensively after  the  depression  which  Caird  investigated  had 
come  to  an  end,  the  loan  facilities  provided  for  landowners 
by  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  1848  for  the  draining  of  their  estates 
being  used  to  a  considerable  extent,  though  the  terms  were 
not  very  easy,  as  borrowers  were  required  to  pay  6^  per 
cent,  for  twenty-two  years,  to  cover  capital  and  interest ; 
and  drains  seldom  last  longer  than  that  period  in  effective 
condition. 

Steam  was  applied  to  the  cultivation  of  land  by  John 
Usher  of  Edinburgh  by  means  of  a  rotatory  implement,  in 
1851  or  1852 ;  Smith's  steam  cultivator  did  good  work  in 
1856;  and  Fowler's  steam  plough,  worked  by  a  single 
engine  and  an  anchor,  gained  the  prize  of  2002.  offered  by 
the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  in  1857.  In  the  following 
year  Fowler  won  the  Society's  prize  of  5002.  for  an  improved 
steam  plough,  and  later  he  brought  out  his  double-engine 
system  for  ploughs  and  ctdtivators,  which  has  lasted,  with 
some  improvements,  up  to  the  present  time.  The  reaping 
machine  was  first  made  effective  enough  to  be  used  to  an 
appreciable  extent  in  1852,  when  Crosskill  introduced  his 
improvement  on  Bell's  reaper,  invented  in  1826 ;  and,  after 
1860,  Crosskill's  three-horse  machine,  which  could  cut  its 
own  way  into  a  field,  as  it  was  driven  in  front  of  the 
horses,  came  into  extensive  use.  In  1872  Samuelson  brought 
out  his  light  and  convenient  one-horse  reaper,  and  various 
machines  by  Homsby  and  other  makers  came  soon  after 
into  the  field,  to  be  followed,  after  a  considerable  interval, 
by  the  sheaf-binders  which  are  now  in  general  work. 
Steam  had  been  applied  to  threshing  machines  in  1850  to 
a  limited  extent,  and  by  1858  several  makers  were  com- 
peting in  them.  As  for  the  ploughs,  harrows,  cultivators, 
and  other  implements  worked  by  horses,  they  were  im- 
proved with  great  rapidity  during  the  period  under  notice ; 
but  the  makers  are  too  numerous  to  be  named.    Nor  have 


BRITISH    AGRICULTURE  841 

we  space  to  notice  the  very  numerous  improvers  of  the 
several  breeds  of  horses,  cattle,  sheep,  and  pigs. 

During  this  period  of  prosperity,  liebig,  Lawes  and 
his  colleague  Gilbert,  Boussingault,  Henslow,  Lindley, 
Buckland,  Daubeny,-  Playfair,  Johnston,  Way,  Ville, 
Men^,  E[artig,  and  Yoelcker  were  popularising  science  as 
applied  to  agriculture;  and  valuable  articles  appeared 
in  the  *  Journal '  of  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  and  the 
*  Transactions '  of  the  Highland  and  Agricultural  Society  of 
Scotland.  Caird  noticed  the  use  of  nitrate  of  soda  as  a 
novelty  in  1850;  but  guano,  dissolved  bones,  and  super- 
phosphate were  becoming  common  manures ;  and  broken 
bones  had  been  applied  to  pastures  in  Cheshire  with 
wonderful  effect.  The  dairying  branch  of  agriculture 
received  the  least  attention;  but  in  1855  the  Somerset 
system  of  Cheddar-cheese  making  was  introduced  into 
Scotland,  marking  the  beg^ning  of  an  important  industry 
for  that  country. 

With  respect  to  the  tenure  of  land,  leases,  though 
generally  too  short  to  afford  security  for  steady  improve* 
ment,  were  conmion  in  many  counties  at  the  beginning 
of  the  century,  but  fell  almost  entirely  into  disuse  in 
England  during  the  prolonged  period  of  distress  that 
followed  the  year  1815,  so  that  Caird  found  them  un- 
common in  1850.  Nineteen  years'  leases,  however,  had 
come  into  fashion  in  Scotland,  and  in  England  the  leasing 
system  was  revived,  especially  on  small  estates,  when 
farming  became  prosperous  once  more. 

The  great  rise  in  rents  which  took  place  revived  the 
demand  for  tenant-right,  which  Lord  Portman  had  raised 
or  represented  in  1841,  but  without  success.  Mr  Pusey,  in 
1847,  followed  Lord  Portman's  lead  by  introducing  a  bill 
giving  tenants  legal  security  for  their  improvements.  It 
was  referred  to  a  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  before  which  some  very  strong  evidence  in  its 
favour  was  given.  It  wa4Si  clearly  shown  that  tenants  were 
frequently  rented  on  their  own  improvements,  and  that 
this  was  a  source  of  much  discouragement  and  a  deter- 
rent to  high  farming.  The  Committee,  however,  reported 
against  compulsory  legislation,  and  in  1848,  when  the  bill 
was  again  brought  forward,  it  was  rejected.  In  1850, 
Mr  Pusey  succeeded  in  passing  his  measure  through  the 
Hoiise  of  Commons,  only  to  h^rve  it  thrown  out  by  the 


BRITISH    AGRICULTURE  845 

grdat  recovery  in  com  prices  in  1860,  and  the  American 
Civil  War,  in  1861,  brought  the  wheat  average  up  to 
SS«.  4dF.  per  quarter,  followed  by  an  advance  of  a  penny 
in  the  following  year. 

This  brings  us  to  the  end  of  the  decade  of  high  agri- 
cultural prosperity;  but,  although  all  kinds  of  com  fell 
greatly  in  value  for  three  years,  the  greatest  wheat  crop 
on  record  was  grown  in  1863,  the  total  being  estimated 
at  nearly  18,000,000  quarters,  and  the  average  per  acre 
at  38}  bushels.  Moreover,  another  splendid  harvest  was 
reaped  in  the  following  year,  and  a  good  one  in  1865 ;  so 
that,  even  with  wheat  at  400.  2d.  to  44«.  Oc2.,  there  was  not 
much  to  complain  of,  especially  as  meat  and  dairy  pro- 
duce advanced  in  value  as  com  went  down.  In  those 
times  a  poor  harvest  insured  good  prices,  as  imports  of 
com  remained  at  a  comparatively  low  level,  and  two  bad 
seasons,  those  of  1866  and  1867,  restored  the  average 
rates  to  a  high  level  in  the  two  following  years.  Wheat 
was  64^.  5d.  and  63«.  9d. ;  barley  408.  and  43^. ;  and  oats 
averaged  268.  and  28.a.  IcZ.,  prices  only  rarely  surpassed  all 
round  in  the  heyday  of  Protection. 

If  it  was  chiefly  during  the  period  of  the  Crimean  War 
and  the  prosperous  years  that  ensued  that  farmers  saved 
fortunes,  it  may  at  least  be  said  that  tibey  held  their  own 
well  for  many  years  longer.  The  twelve  harvests  ending 
with  that  of  1866  probably  made  the  best  series  ever 
known,  and  it  was  only  the  fall  in  prices  for  the  last  three 
years  of  the  period  which  rendered  the  prosperity  of  com- 
gi*owers  less  remarkable  than  in  the  decade  ending  with 
1863.  But  the  '  sixties '  were  not  to  end  without  another 
great  harvest,  that  of  1868,  when  prices,  as  already  noticed, 
were  high.  In  the  '  seventies '  the  harvests  were  as  poor, 
as  a  rule,  as  they  had  been  rich  in  the  x^receding  decade ; 
but  com  prices  remained  high  up  to  1875,  while  animal 
products,  including  wool,  have  rarely  if  ever  been  so  dear 
before  or  since.  Wool  fell  in  value  in  that  year,  however, 
and  the  harvest  was  the  fourth  bad  one  that  had  been 
experienced  since  1870.  Therefore  the  period  of  prosperity, 
great  at  first,  and  moderate  afterwards,  may  be  said  to 
have  ended  with  1874,  after  lasting  for  twenty-two  years. 
A  more  or  less  serious  drawback  to  the  good  times  was 
the  fluctuating  prevalence  of  pleuro-pneumonia  and  foot- 
and-mouth  disease ;  the  former  disease  having  been  intro- 


BRITISH   AGRICULTURE  847 

but  the  scheme  collapsed  in  the  latter  year,  and  it  was  not 
until  1866  that  the  Agricultural  Returns  of  Great  Britain 
appeared.  These  returns  gave  for  the  first  time  an  ap- 
proximately accurate  account  of  the  acreage  of  crops 
and  the  numbers  of  the  several  classes  of  live  stock  in 
the  country.  The  area  under  wheat,  which  was  known 
with  a  close  approach  to  accuracy  years  before,  had  begun 
to  decline,  and  was  returned  at  3,661,351  acres  in  1866  for 
the  United  Kingdom,  3,351,394  acres  of  this  total  being 
credited  to  Great  Britain.  In  1874  the  area  in  Great 
Britain  was  nearly  300,000  acres  more,  and  it  was  not 
until  five  years  later  that  a  great  decline  took  place. 
Other  com  crops,  taken  together,  held  their  gpround. 
During  the  same  period  cattle  had  increased  in  Great 
Britain  from  under  five  millions  to  over  six  millions. 
The  return  of  sheep  in  1866  was  obviously  incomplete; 
but  in  the  following  year  the  number  was  a  little  undet* 
twenty-nine  millions,  and  it  was  over  thirty  million^  in 
1874.  Pigs  had  remained  at  less  than  2^  millions.  There 
was  no  return  of  horses  in  1866.  Up  to  1874,  then,  the 
statistics  of  British  agriculture  indicated  prosperity. 

Except  in  1878,  the  harvests  of  the  rest  of  the  'seventies' 
were  poor,  and  the  price  of  wheat  was  under  47^.  a  quajrter 
in  all  but  one  of  those  years.  But  other  kinds  of  com  and 
animal  products,  excepting  wool,  continued  to  sell  well  till 
1878,  though  with  a  downward  tendency  generally.  The 
depression  had  begun ;  but  it  had  not  yet  become  severe. 
The  disastrous  harvest  of  1879,  already  mentioned  as  the 
worst  of  the  century — when  a  wet  season  spoilt  a  good 
deal  of  the  little  com  produced — ^together  with  a  great 
f aU  in  the  prices  of  most  farm  products,  brought  about 
a  sudden  climax  of  misfortune.  There  were  no  official 
statistics  of  crop  yields  in  those  days;  but  Mr  (afterwards 
Sir  John)  Lawes  estimated  the  wheat  average  at  only  15^ 
bushels  per  acre ;  and  the  average  price  was  only  438.  lOd. 
-per  quarter.  Then  commenced  the  period  of  agricultural 
depression  which  has  lasted,  with  some  mitigation  from 
partial  adjustment  of  conditions  in  tiie  latter  part  of  it, 
down  to  the  end  of  the  century. 

As  in  the  time  of  prosperity  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  rents  had  risen  enormously  during  the  Crimean 
War  and  afterwards,  and  farmers  had  adopted  an  expen* 
sive  style  of  living.    Wages,  too,  had  risen,  wt '  ^ 


BRITISH   AGRICULTURE  840 

landlords,  equality  in  railway  rates  on  home  and  foreign 
products,  and  the  appointment  of  a  Minister  of  Agriculture. 
Nearly  all  these  reconmiendations  have  received  the  at- 
tention of  Parliament,  though  the  resultant  legislation  has 
not  been  in  all  cases  effectual.  The  i)ermissive  Agricultural 
Holdings  Act  of  1875,  for  example,  was  superseded  in  1883 
by  an  extended  and  compulsory  measure,  a  modifica- 
tion of  the  Law  of  Distress  being  among  its  provisions ; 
but  the  expense  involved  in  putting  it  in  operation,  with 
the  uncertainty  of  arbitration  and  possible  litigation  as  a 
sequel,  prevented  it  from  having  a  widespread  effect, 
except  indirectly.  Besides,  the  period  that  has  elapsed 
since  it  was  passed  has  been  one  of  retrenchment  rather 
than  of  outlay  on  improvements  among  the  great  majority 
of  farmers.  Again,  in  spite  of  the  apparently  distinct  pro- 
hibition of  preference  rates  on  imported  produce  in  the 
Railway  and  Canal  Traffic  Act,  such  rates  still  continue, 
giving  a  most  unfair  advantage  to  foreign  and  colonial 
competitors  over  British  and  Irish  farmers.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  cattle-disease  legislation  has  had  a  highly  bene- 
ficial effect. 

Depression  deepened  as  the  losses  of  successive  years 
swallowed  up  the  capital  of  farmers,  and  arrears  of  rent, 
many  of  them  never  to  be  paid,  accumulated.  For  some 
time  most  landlords,  hoping  that  the  depression  was  only 
temporary,  refused  to  allow  permanent  reductions  in  their 
rents,  though  many  of  them  granted  temporary  remissions 
on  a  liberal  scale  year  after  year.  Thus  it  happened  that 
a  great  number  of  old  tenants  had  to  quit  their  farms, 
which  could  only  be  let  to  new  men  at  a  great  reduction 
in  rent.  Thousands  of  farmers  were  ruined,  and  all  but 
comparatively  few  were  seriously  crippled.  The  em- 
plojrment  of  labour  was  reduced  as  low  as  possible,  land 
being  laid  down  to  grass  extensively,  or  left  to  lay  itself 
down  with  g^ass  and  weeds.  Many  farms  were  thrown 
on  the  owners*  hands,  and  not  a  few  became  derelict  for 
some  years,  as  they  were  considered  not  to  be  worth 
the  tithes  and  rates  charged  upon  them.  The  migration 
of  agricultural  labourers  to  the  towns  between  1871  and 
1881  was  on  a  large  scale,  and  the  census  of  1891  shows 
that  it  continued  during  the  next  ten  years. 

Almost  everything  was  in  combination  to  deepen  the 
depression  for  some  years  after  1879.  Foreign  competi- 
Vol.  198.— iVb.  386.  2  b 


BRITISH   AGRICULTURE  351 

proBperouB  times,  milk  having  sunk  very  low,  except  in 
seasons  of  drought,  towards  the  end  of  the  century. 

One  of  the  great  advantages  of  the  most  prosperous 
decade  of  British  agriculture  was  the  high  price  of  wool 
that  prevailed.  After  being  very  cheap,  as  then  con- 
sidered, from  1842  to  1851,  an  advance  began  in  1852,  when 
the  average  price  of  Lincoln  wool,  for  example,  was  13§€2. 
per  lb.  In  the  following  year  it  rose  to  16c{.,  and  in  the 
next  nine  years  it  ranged  from  a  fraction  under  that  rate 
to  20id.  The  highest  average  for  eighty  years  up  to  the 
end  of  the  century,  however,  was  that  of  1864,  when  it 
was  27|c2.  per  lb.  It  was  over  20c2.  in  six  of  the  next 
ten  years,  and  did  not  fall  below  15(2.  till  after  1878.  But 
a  drop  to  12}c{.  in  1870  added  to  the  misfortunes  of  that 
disastrous  year,  and  the  average  of  Lincoln  wool  has 
never  been  as  high  since,  the  minimum  of  7|c2.  having 
been  reached  in  the  last  year  of  the  century.  Our  net  im- 
portslof  sheep  and  lamb's  wool  in  1879  were  153,757,000  lb., 
and  they  reached  the  maximum  of  394,342,000  lb.  in  1898, 
falling  to  332,857,000  lb.  in  1900. 

The  first  three  harvests  of  the  *  eighties'  were  poor, 
but  all  the  rest  were  good  or  fair ;  while  crops  were  better 
still,  on  the  whole,  in  the  '  nineties.'  But,  with  prices  as 
low  as  they  were  after  1883,  it  was  difficult  to  make  corn- 
growing  yield  a  living  profit,  even  in  the  best  of  seasons, 
and  the  acreage  under  com  continued  to  decline.  The 
area  under  wheat,  which  had  been  over  4,000,000  acres  in 
the  United  Kingdom  down  to  1859,  was  still  over  3,500,000 
acres  in  Great  Britain  alone  in  1871-75 ;  but  by  1900  it  had 
fallen  to  1,845,042  acres.  The  area  under  com  of  all  kinds 
had  decreased  from  over  9^  million  to  a  little  over  7^  million 
acres.  During  the  same  period  permanent  pasture  had 
gained  nearly  four  million  acres.  An  increase  of  less  than 
a  million  cattle,  with  a  decrease  of  over  two  million  sheep, 
showed  that  what  had  been  lost  in  com  had  not  been 
gained  in  meat  production.  On  the  other  hand,  a  great 
increase  had  taken  place  in  the  cultivation  of  fruit,  both 
in  the  open  and  under  glass. 

With  respect  to  the  cost  of  labour,  Mr  Bowley's  average 
for  England  and  Wales  in  1879-81,  derived  from  returns 
not  specified,  was  13^.  9c2.,  as  compared  with  Caird's  9^.  6d. 
in  1851 ;  and  he  gives  13^.  4d.  for  1892-3,  as  the  average 
brought  out  by  the  Boyal  Commission  on  Labour  which 

2b  2 


BRITISH   AGRICULTURE  858 

Association  established  the  British  Dairy  Institute,  while 
the  Bath  and  West  of  England  Society  started  a  travelling 
daily  school  and  a  cheese  school,  and  the  County  Councils 
and  Agricultural  Colleges  set  up  dairy  schools  and  classes. 
There  has  thus  been  a  remarkable  extension  of  technical 
instruction  in  this  branch  of  agriculture.  The  invention 
of  the  centrifugal  cream  separator  in  1877  and  the  intro- 
duction of  the  butter^worker  revolutionised  the  butter- 
making  industry,  while  the  general  use  of  the  thermometer 
in  churning  and  the  improvement  of  all  the  implements 
and  appliances  of  the  dairy  had  a  marked  effect. 

Indications  are  not  lacking  to  show  that  agricultural 
education,  which  made  giant  strides  in  the  last  thirty 
years  of  the  century,  has  done  much  to  mitigate  the  de- 
pression in  agriculture,  by  teaching  farmers,  and  particu- 
larly those  who  have  lately  entered  into  business,  how  to 
make  the  best  of  their  resources.  In  1868  a  grant  was 
given  by  Parliament  to  the  chair  of  Agriculture  in  the 
University  of  Edinbuif^h,  and  in  the  following  year  the 
Senior  Examinations  of  the  Royal  Ag^cultural  Society 
were  started ;  while  in  1870  the  Science  and  Art  Depart- 
ment added  the  Principles  of  Agriculture  to  the  subjects 
for  which  grants  were  made  to  elementary  schools,  and, 
later  on,  established  classes  for  the  training  of  the  teachers 
in  those  schools.  In  1874  the  Agricultural  School  at 
Aspatria  was  founded  by  local  gentlemen;  in  1877  the 
Boyal  Agricultural  Society  began  to  carry  out  field  and 
stock-feeding  experiments,  similar  to  those  of  Sir  John 
Lawes  and  Sir  J.  H.  Gilbert,  on  a  farm  at  Woburn  granted 
by  the  Duke  of  Bedford ;  and  in  1880  the  Downton  Agri- 
cultural College  was  started  by  Professor  Wrightson  as  a 
private  venture.  In  1884  the  University  College  of  North 
Wales,  which  has  an  Agricultural  Division,  was  f  oimded ; 
and  since  that  year  seven  similar  institutions,  now  ranking 
with  the  North  Wales  College  as  coUegiate  centres  of 
agrictdtural  instruction,  have  been  established  in  South 
Wales,  Yorkshire,  Durham,  Kent»  Nottingham,  Beading, 
and  Cambridge.  In  England  we  have  also  the  Agri- 
ctdtural College  at  Uckfield,  Sussex,  the  Colonial  College 
at  Hollesley  Bay,  Suffolk,  the  Agricultural  and  Horti- 
cultural School  in  Cheshire,  the  Eastern  Counties  Dairy 
Institute,  the  Midland  Dairy  Institute,  the  Harris  Institute 
at  Preston,  and  schools  of  less  importance  in  which  agri- 


356  BRITISH   AGRICULTURE 

cultural  instruction  is  systematically  given.  In  Scotland 
besides  the  Agricidtural  Division  of  Edinburgh  University, 
there  is  the  West  of  Scotland  Agricultural  College,  formed 
in  1900  out  of  the  Olasgow  Technical  College;  and  the 
Kilmarnock  Dairy  School,  f  otmded  some  years  ago,  which 
is  now  affiliated  to  the  West  of  Scotland  College.  Finally, 
during  the  last  decade  of  the  century,  the  County  Councils 
have  made  a  great  advance  in  the  organisation  of  dasses, 
lectures,  and  experiments  in  relation  to  agriculture,  as 
well  as  to  other  branches  of  technical  education. 

The  present  Board  of  Agricultmre,  which,  in  1889,  took 
the  place  of  the  Agricultural  Department  of  the  Privy 
Council,  established  in  1883,  administers  the  funds  granted 
by  Parliament  for  the  assistance  of  agricultural  colleges 
and  similar  centres  of  instruction,  and  for  agricultural  re- 
search and  experiments.  Such  experiments  are  oarried 
on  by  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  agricultural  colleges  or  divi- 
sions of  colleges,  some  of  which  have  farms  of  their  own 
for  the  purpose. 

The  instruction  given  to  lads  and  young  men,  who  have 
since  become  landlords,  land  agents,  or  farmers,  has  had 
a  great  effect  in  rendering  practice  more  scientific  A 
similar  influence  has  been  exercised  by  the  field  and  stock- 
feeding  experiments  carried  out  in  various  parts  of  the 
country,  and  the  reports  upon  them,  as  well  as  by  articles 
in  agricultural  papers  and  periodicals,  and  the  numerous 
manuals  on  agriculture  and  kindred  subjects  published 
during  the  last  twenty  years.  Among  the  latter  vaust  be 
named  the  books  and  reports  published  by  Miss  Ormerod, 
giving  the  results  of  her  valuable  investigations  in  refer- 
ence to  injurious  insects  and  the  best  methods  of  destroy- 
ing them.  Anything  new  in  varieties  of  plants  grown  on 
farms,  in  combinations  of  manures,  in  economy  of  stock- 
feeding,  in  the  destruction  of  animal  or  vegetable  pests,  or 
in  mechanical  invention,  becomes  speedily  known  to  all 
reading  farmers  in  these  times  of  wide-spread  inf ormation. 
Sprajdng  for  the  prevention  of  potato  disease,  introduced 
only  a  few  years  ago,  has  lately  been  extensively  practised; 
and  the  still  later  plan  of  spraying  for  the  destruction  of 
charlock  (wild  mustard)  has  been  carried  out  in  many 
parts  of  the  country.  The  spraying  of  fruit  trees  for  the 
destruction  of  injuriotis  insects,  too,  has  recently  become 
general  among  advanced  fruit-jn'owers. 


(    350    ) 

Art.  III.— ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  CRITICISM. 

1.  A  History  of  bathetic.  By  Bernard  Bosanquet.  Lon* 
don :  Swan  Sonnenschein,  1892. 

2.  L'Anarchie  lAtUraire.  Par  Charles  Becolin.  Paris: 
Perrin,  1898. 

3.  A  History  of  Critidsni  and  Literary  Taste  in  Europe, 
By  George  Saintsbury*  Vol.  I.  Edinburgh  and  Lon- 
don :  Blackwood,  1900. 

4.  Dionysius  ofHalicarruissus:  The  Three  Literary  Letters. 
By  W.  Rhys  Roberts.  Cambridge  University  Press,  1901 . 

Is  it  possible  for  society  in  its  collective  capacity  to  exiercise 
a  reasoned  judgment  in  matters  of  art  and  taste  ?  Fifty 
years  ago  the  answer  to  this  question  would  unhesitatingly 
have  been  in  the  affirmative.  For  two  centuries  the 
sovereign  centre  of  the  community,  wherever  it  lay,  had 
succeeded,  by  whatever  means,  in  stamping  its  own 
character  on  the  art  and  literature  of  the  time.  After 
the  Restoration  of  the  Monarchy  the  controlling  influence 
proceeded  from  the  Court ;  after  the  Revolution  of  1688 
taste  was  directed  by  an  alliance  between  the  ruling 
statesmen  and  the  critics  of  the  coffee-houses ;  from  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  tiU  the  first  Reform  Bill, 
and  for  some  years  later,  the  body  of  opinion  formed  in 
the  preceding  generations,  though  it  was  being  rapidly 
decomposed,  maintained  its  authority  in  the  drawing- 
rooms  of  'society'  and  in  the  leading  literary  reviews, 
and  therefore  formed  a  contributory  factor  in  artiatic  pro- 
duction. In  all  these  epochs  it  is  possible  for  the  historian 
to  recover,  through  the  national  art,  an  image  of  the 
character  of  contemporary  social  taste. 

But  in  our  day  this  authoritative  direction  no  longer 
exists.  The  public,  aninnumerable  multitude  of  individuals, 
with  contradictory  instincts  capable  of  being  aesthetically 
pleased,  craves  omnivorously  for  novelties,  which  are  no 
less  capriciously  provided  for  it  by  the  artist.  Its  taste 
resembles  the  course  of  one  of  those  great  Indian  rivers 
which,  after  being  swelled  not  only  with  the  rainfall  of 
the  mountains  but  with  the  mud  and  sand  of  the  plain, 
often  freakishly  shifte  its  bed  and.  sweeping  away,  to  the 
despair  of  the  engineer,  villages  and  capitals,  brideres  and 
temples,  finds  a  passage  to  the  sea  by  some  unexpected 


ANCIENT  AND   MODERN   CRITICISM      887 

very  little  of  those  whom  Mr  Bosanquet  regar^Js  as  their 
predecessors. 

'  The  Aristotelian  principle  of  Imitation/  says  Hartmann, 
'and  the  Platonic  abstract  idealism  are  rightly  held  to  be 
of  no  further  moment  for  SBSthetic  theory ;  while  Aristotle's 
"  Poetic/'  owing  to  Lessing^s  glorification  of  it,  has  still  an  un- 
deserved reputation,  and  Plato's  obscure  indications  of  aesthetic 
views  are  obviously  not  worth  the  emphasis  that  is  laid 
on  them.' 

Nothing  in  fact  need  be  considered  by  the  German 
philosopher  before  the  genesis  of  the  modem  sesthetic 
philosophy  of  Kant.  And  this  is  undoubtedly  the  case — 
for  the  German  philosopher.  But  on  the  other  hand  German 
philosophy  throws  no  ray  of  light,  as  Mr  Bosanquet  had 
led  us  to  hope  that  it  would,  on  the  practice  of  fine  art.  If 
we  wish  to  be  informed  of  *the  six  orders  of  formal  beauty — 
unconscious  formal  beauty  or  the  sensuously  pleasant;  the 
mathematically  and  the  dynamically  pleasing;  the  passively 
teleological  (as  shown  for  example  in  decorative  beauty) ; 
the  vital,  bearing  of  course  a  substantial  relation  to  some  of 
the  mathematical  and  dynamical  forms ;  and  last  of  the 
"formal"  orders,  the  regular  or  normal  type  in  any  species' 
— we  shall  find  plenty  of  metaphysical  specxilation  of  this 
kind  from  the  days  of  Schiller  and  Schelling  down  to  those 
of  Hartmann.  But  if  we  ask  what  light  all  this  reasoning 
throws  on  the  beautiful  things  of  poetry,  painting,  and 
sculpture,  we  shall  ask  in  vain.  German  sesthetic  theory 
reminds  us  of  the  debates  of  the  fallen  angels  m  Pande- 
monium : — 

'  Others  apart  sat  on  a  hill  retir'd. 
In  thoughts  more  elevate,  and  reasoned  high 
Of  providence,  foreknowledge,  will,  and  fate, 
Pixt  fate,  free  wOl,  foreknowledge  absolute. 
And  found  no  end,  in  wand'ring  mazes  lost.' 

We  set  out  on  our  enquiry,  hoping  by  the  a  priori  road 
to  arrive  at  some  conclusion  which  would  show  us  whether 
a  concrete  work  of  art  was  or  was  not  beautiful.  But 
when  we  a^k  for  artistic  brea^,  Mr  Bosanquet  tells  us  we 
must  be  contented  with  the  stone  of  aesthetic  theory. 
Moreover : 

'  If  we  turn  from  the  critical  and  reflective  appreciation  of 
beauty  to  the  realm  of  beautiful  production^  it  is  idle  to  deny 

2c2 


ANCIENT    AND    MODERN    CRITICISM      871 

man  always  as  a  *  political  being,'  and,  viewing  him  in  his 
social  capacity  and  his  social  actions,  is  fally  justified, 
when  judging  of  orators  and  poets,  in  taking  into  account 
those  moral  sentiments  which  affect  all  the  conditions  of 
active  life.  On  the  contrary,  Kant  and  the  German 
philosophers,  who  analyse  man  in  the  abstract,  take  him 
out  of  that  social  sphere  in  which  all  his  sesthetic  powers 
are  really  exercised,  and  hence  eliminate  one  of  the  con- 
ditions of  life  in  judging  of  art. 

Mr  Saintsbury  again  blames  Aristotle  for  undervaluing 
the  importance  of  style,  and  compares  him  in  this  respect 
disadvantageously  with  Longinus.  The  passage  in  the 
•Rhetoric'  on  which  he  gro^nds  his  opinion  is:  To  irepl 

fiavofievov.  In  Mr  Saintsbury's  paraphrase  this  is  supposed 
to  mean :  *  Style  is  a  modem  thing  and,  rightly  considered, 
something  ad  captandum.^  But  our  author  here  com- 
pletely misinterprets  Aristotle's  meaning.  Dr  Welldon 
rightly  translates  the  whole  passage  : 

*  But  up  to  the  present  time,  no  scientific  treatise  upon  de- 
clamation has  been  composed,  for  it  was  not  till  a  late  date 
that  the  art  of  style  itself  made  any  progress,  and  declama- 
tion (virofcpirtic^)  is  still  popularly  considered,  and  indeed  rightly 
supposed,  to  be  something  vulgar.'  (Aristotle, '  Rhetoric,'  m,  i.) 

Clearly  this  does  not  involve  a  disparagement  of  Tj^i,^ 
but  of  xnroKpvTu^, 

Cicero,  in  Mr  Saintsbury's  hands,  fares,  however,  much 
worse  than  Aristotle.    We  are  told : 

*  He  seems  to  have  thought  Oratory  the  roof  and  crown  of 
things  literary,  the  queen  of  literary  kinds,  to  which  all  others 
were  ancillary,  pedagogic,  mere  exercising  grounds  and  sources 
of  convenient  ornament.  No  one  so  thinking  could  make  any 
great  proficiency  in  Uterary  criticism,  and  Cicero  did  not  make 
any  such.' 

Considering  that  the  business  of  Cicero  in  the  '  De  Ora- 
tore'  and  the  'Brutus'  was  to  discuss  oratory  and  orators,  it 
is  difficult  to  see  why  he  should  be  blamed  for  abstaining 
from  criticism  on  literature  generally.  But  Mr  Saints- 
bury  is  determined  to  prove  that  he  was  wanting  in  liter- 
ary taste,  and  he  does  so  in  a  manner  which  we  think  he 
wUl  see,  on  reflection,  ie  unf  air,  namely  by  misrepresent-* 


ANCIENT   AND    MODERN    CRITICISM      378 

Greeks  is,  in  his  opinion,  the  Tlepl  "^T'^rov?  ascribed  to 
Longinus.    Of  this  work  he  says : 

'  This  brings  us  to  his  greatest  claim  of  all — that  is  to  say, 
his  attitude  towards  his  subject  as  a  whole.  Although  he  no- 
where says  as  much  in  so  many  words,  no  one  can  read  his 
book  with  attention — aboTe  all,  no  one  can  read  it  again  and 
again  critically — ^without  seeing  that  to  him  literature  was 
not  a  schedule  of  forms,  departments,  kinds,  with  candidates 
presenting  themselves  for  the  critic  to  admit  them  to  one  or 
the  other,  on  and  during  their  good  behaviour,  but  a  body  of 
matter  to  be  examined  according  to  its  fruits,  according  to  its 
provision  of  the  literary  pleasure/ 

In  another  place  he  speaks  almost  rhapsodically  of 
Longinus'  saying,  that '  beautiful  words  are  in  deed  and 
in  fact  the  very  light  of  the  spirit,'  which  Mr  Saintsbury 
calls '  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  *^  Let  there 
be  Light "  at  once  of  Literary  Criticism.' 

Here  we  think  the  praise  of  this  author  and  the  im- 
plied depreciation  of  his  predecessors  are  alike  dispro- 
portionate. We  concur,  indeed,  in  all  that  Mr  Saintsbury 
says  of  the  excessive  dryness  of  the  Greek  technical  trea- 
tises on  rhetoric,  but  we  do  not  think  that  this  necessarily 
shows  the  insensibility  of  the  Greek  critics  in  general  to 
the  beauty  of  literary  form.  It  would,  indeed,  have  been 
strange  if  the  countrymen  of  Sophocles  had  been  unable  to 
judge  critically  of  the  merits  of  the  'CBdipus  Coloneus';  and 
we  know  in  fact  that  judges  representative  of  the  audience 
were  appointed  to  decide  the  prizes  in  the  dramatic  exhibi- 
tions at  the  Dionysia.  These  judges,  though  they  may 
have  often  judged  wrongly,  must  have  been  capable  of  the 
same  kind  of  literary  judgment  as  ourselves.  On  the  other 
hand,  while  we  do  not  yield  to  Mr  Saintsbury  in  our  admira- 
tion for  the  critical  acumen  and  enthusiasm  of  the  author 
of  the  Tlepl  ^T*^!/?,  we  are  by  no  means  of  opinion  that 
his  criticism  differs  in  kind  from  that  of  other  Greek 
writers  on  rhetoric.  His  treatise  is  addressed  to  his  friend 
Terentianus,  professedly  in  consequence  of  his  dissatisfac- 
tion with  what  Caecilius,  the  writer  of  an  earlier  work  on 
rhetoric,  had  said  on  the  subject  of  the  Sublime ;  and  if  we 
had  Caecilius'  criticism  we  should  doubtless  find  that  it 
had  suggested  many  of  the  thoughts  as  well  as  the  illus- 
trations of  the  UepfTy^iw^.   In  his  arrangement  the  writer 


ANCIENT   AND   MODERN   CRITICISM      877 

universe,  which  is  beyond  our  power,  nor  as  to  the  course 
of  literature  in  the  past,  which  is  unalterable,  but  as  to  a 
state  of  things  which  is  largely  dependent  on  the  exercise 
of  our  own  will  and  energy,  in  a  society  where  every  free 
man  is  able  to  exert  some  influence.  No  one  has  had  a 
larger  experience  of  practical  criticism  than  Mr  Saintsbury : 
he  knows  very  well  that  the  description  which  M.  Becolin 
gives  of  the  public  taste  is  true.  Does  he  then  think  it 
the  duty  of  a  critic,  when  he  sees  what  he  considers  to  be 
a  •  sin '  or  a  *  fault  *  or  an  *  error '  in  a  book,  to  expose  it  in 
the  light  of  fixed  principles  ?  or  should  the  critic,  with  an 
Epicurean  indifference,  be  content  merely  to  set  forth  the 
motives  of  his  author  without  pronouncing  whether  these 
are  good  or  bad?  The  latter  is  the  course  adopted  by 
M.  Recolin.  He  endeavours  to  disguise  from  himself  the 
consequences  of  the  existing  anarchy  by  faintly  trusting 
•  the  larger  hope.' 

'I  am  completely  reassured,'  he  says,  *by  a  page  of  M. 
Doumic,  who  reminds  us  in  one  of  his  studies  that  the  first 
years  of  the  seventeenth  century  presented  the  same  feverish 
83rmptoms  as  those  which  we  experience  to-day.  Obscurity, 
affectation,  a  rage  for  Spanish  and  Italian  literature,  bad  taste 
triumphing  in  the  theatre  with  Hardy,  in  ix)etry  with  Scarron, 
a  mixture  of  cynical  eroticism  and  pious  effusions  among  the 
poets  themselves,  artistic  cliques,  the  centres  of  a  debauched 
bohemianism,  each  with  its  Yerlaine  or  its  Bruant — such  are 
the  fruits  of  anarchy — so  like  those  of  our  own  epoch — ^to  be 
observed  in  the  dawn  of  the  "  Grand  Si^le,"  the  most  reason- 
able, the  most  glorious,  of  all  centuries.* 

Mr  Saintsbury  is  not  likely  to  be  deluded  by  such  an 
argimient  as  this.  He  is  too  well  acquainted  with  the  course 
of  literary  history  not  to  recognise  the  essential  difference 
between  the  anarchy  of  the  bl<28^  self-conscious  society  of 
the  twentieth  century  and  the  chaotic  confiict  of  opinion  in 
the  first  years  of  the  seventeenth ;  while  the  French  mind 
W£is  still  agitated  by  the  recollections  of  civil  war,  and 
distracted  between  the  antagonistic  ideals  of  the  Renais* 
sance,  the  Reformation,  and  the  Middle  Ages ;  before  the 
Monarchy  had  centralised  in  itself  all  the  political  powers 
of  the  nation ;  before  the  Academy  had  been  founded  to  con- 
trol with  its  logic  the  tendencies  of  the  national  thought 
and  language.    He  knows  that  the  taste  of  Hardy  had  as 


ANCIENT  AND   MODERN   CRITICISM      879 

exists,  or  of  the  nature  of  the  internal  structure  by  which 
it  is  sustained:  hence  arose  their  syllogistic  method  of 
reasoning,  which  passed  on  from  them  to  the  medisdval 
schoolmen,  and  which  found  its  most  striking  embodiment 
alike  in  the  poetry  and  in  the  philosophy  of  Dante. 

We  observe,  therefore,  with  much  satisfaction,  that 
the  whole  subject  of  Greek  criticism  is  being  taken  in 
hand  by  so  sound  and  thorough  a  scholar  as  Mr  Rhys 
Roberts,  and  we  heartily  welcome  the  instalment  of  Ids 
work  that  has  recently  appeared  in  his  excellent  edition 
of  *  The  Three  Literary  Letters  of  Dionysius  of  Halicar- 
nassus.'  Dionysius  is  an  admirable  critic,  manly,  searching, 
sane,  yet  capable  (as  his  appreciation  of  Demosthenes 
shows)  of  genuine  enthusiasm.  He  approaches,  perhaps, 
more  nearly  than  any  ancient  writer  to  Mr  Saintsbury's 
ideal  of  *  literary  criticism,'  and  we  are  glad  to  see  that 
the  latter  speaks  of  him  with  fitting  respect ;  indeed,  we 
are  not  ourselves  disposed  to  admit  that  there  is  so  wide 
an  interval  in  critical  genius  between  him  .and  the  author 
of  Uepl'^Ty^v^  as  Mr  Saintsbury  maintains.  In  any  case  a 
better  example  of  the  value  of  criticism,  based  on  definite 
principles  and  directed  towards  a  definite  end,  than  the 
works  of  Dionysius,  cannot  be  found. 

Secondly,  ancient  criticism  furnishes  us,  both  uncon- 
sciously by  the  light  of  history,  and  by  the  reasoning 
of  some  of  the  most  illustrious  critics,  with  a  clue  to  the 
cause  of  decay  in  artistic  expression,  namely  the  poverty 
and  triviality  of  social  aims.  Mr  Saintsbury  gives  an 
admirably  generalised  view  of  the  character  of  school 
rhetoric  in  the  Alexandrian  ages  : — 

'  As  the  practical  importance  of  oratory  declined,  the  techni- 
cal and  "  sporting  "  interest  of  Rhetoric  got  more  and  more  the 
upper  hand.  Rhetoricians  specialised  their  terminology,  multi- 
plied their  classifications,  and  drew  their  rules  ever  finer  and 
finer,  just  as  croquet  players  narrow  their  hoops  and  bulge 
out  their  balls,  just  as  whist-players  split  and  wire-draw  the 
broad  general  principles  of  the  play  of  Deschapelles  and  Clay 
into  **  American  leads,**  and  an  endless  reverberation  of  "  calls  " 
and  **  echoes."  We.  possess  a  very  large,  and  a  more  curious 
than  interesting,  collection  of  the  technical  writings  of  this 
half  craft,  half  sport,  and  a  collection  rather  less  in  proportion, 
but  a  little  more  interesting,  of  examples  of  the  finished  handi- 
work  or  game.' 


ANCIENT   AND   MODERN    CRITICISM      881 

tion],  the  ancient  and  philosophic  rhetoric  was  flouted,  grossly 
outraged  and  brought  lower  and  lower.  Its  decline  and  gradual 
decay  began  with  the  death  of  Alexander  of  Macedon,  and  in 
our  own  generation  it  reached  the  verge  of  final  extinction. 
Another  rhetoric  stole  into  its  place — one  intolerably  ostenta* 
tious,  shameless  and  dissolute,  and  without  part  in  philosophy 
or  any  other  liberal  discipline.  Craftily  it  deluded  the  ignorant 
multitude.  Not  only  did  it  live  in  greater  affluence  and  luxury 
and  style  than  its  predecessor,  but  it  attached  to  itself  those 
offices  and  those  foremost  public  xx>sitions  which  should  have 
been  held  by  the  philosophic  rhetoric.  Very  vulgar  it  was 
and  offensive,  and  in  the  end  it  reduced  Hellas  to  the  same 
plight  as  the  household  of  miserable  prodigals." 

Now  if  this  be  so,  we,  in  the  third  place,  obtain  from 
ancient  criticism  a  sound  measure  for  determining  to  what 
extent  moral  considerations  should  be  allowed  to  enter 
into  our  judgments  of  fine  art.  We  .acquiesce  in  the  jus- 
tice of  all  that  Mr  Saintsbury  says  about  the  mistakes  xonde 
by  the  great  majority  of  Oreek  critics,  in  letting  their  moral 
prepossessions  pervert  their  conceptions  of  the  true  func- 
tions of  artistic  imitation.  Plato's  condemnation  of  poetry, 
on  moral  and  philosophical  grounds,  and  Plutarch's  peda- 
gogic conmients  on  the '  Iliad '  and  *  Odyssey,'  are  instructive 
examples  of  the  mischief  caused  by  regarding  moral  in- 
struction as  the  final  cause  of  art.  But  Aristotle  arrived 
at  a  sounder  conclusion ;  he  held  that,  as  imitation  was  the 
outward  object  of  art,  so  the  effect  of  plea>sure  produced 
in  the  mind  was  the  inward  end  of  fine  art,  and  the  test  of 
its  value.  Hence  his  criticism  was  based  entirely  on  aesthetic 
principles.  Nevertheless  he  was  far  from  agreeing  with  the 
modem  view,  that  moral  considerations  are  to  be  excluded 
from  flssthetic  judgment& 

^  In  his  praise  as  little  as  in  his  blame,'  says  Mr  Butcher, 
here,  as  always,  a  lucid  interpreter  of  Aristotle's  meaning, 
'  does  Aristotle  look  to  the  moral  content  of  a  poem.  .  .  .  Not 
that  Aristotle  would  set  aside,  as  a  matter  of  indifference,  the 
moral  content  of  a  xx)em  or  the  moral  character  of  the  author. 
Nay,  they  are  all-imxx>rtant  factors  in  producing  the  total 
impression  which  has  to  be  made  upon  the  hearer.  Tragedy 
being  ^e  imitation  of  life,  of  human  welfare  and  human  misery, 
the  pleasure  it  communicates  could  not  conceivably  be  derived 
from  a  poem  which  misinterprets  human  destiny  and  holds 
up  low  ideals  of  life  and  conduct.' 
Vol.  198.— iVb.  386.  2  D 


(    884    ) 


Art,  IV.— PASTBUR  AND  HIS  DISCOVERIES. 

1.  La  vie  de  Pasteur.  Par  Ren^  Vallery-Radot.  Paris: 
Hachette,  1900. 

2.  Pasteur.  By  Percy  Frankland  and  Mrs.  Percy  Frank- 
land.  (Century  Science  Series.)  London  :  Cassell,  1808. 

3.  The  SoltibU  Fermenta  and  Fermentation.  By  J.  Reynolds 
Green.  (Cambridge  Natural  Science  Manuals.)  Cam- 
bridge University  Press,  1809. 

4.  Micro-organisma  and  Fermentation.  By  Alfred  J6rgen- 
sen.  Translated  by  A.  K.  Miller  and  A.  E.  Lennhohn. 
Third  Edition.    London :  Macmillan,  1000. 

As  one  walks  down  the  Rue  des  Tanneurs,  in  the  small 
provincial  town  of  Ddle,  where  the  main  line  from  Paris 
to  Pontarlier  sends  off  a  branch  north-east  towards  Besan- 
Qon,  a  small  tablet  set  in  the  faqade  of  a  humble  dwelling 
catches  the  eye.  It  bears  the  following  inscription  in  gilt 
letters :  *  Ici  est  n^  Louis  Pasteur  le  27  d^embre  1822.* 

Pasteur  came  of  the  people.  In  the  heraldic  meaning  of 
the  term,  he  was  emphatically  not  '  bom.'  His  forbears 
were  shepherds,  peasants,  tillers  of  the  earth,  millers,  and 
latterly,  tanners.  But  he  came  from  amongst  the  best 
peasantry  in  Europe,  that  peasantry  which  is  still  the 
backbone  of  the  great  French  nation.  The  admirable  care 
with  which  records  are  preserved  in  France  has  enabled 
Pasteur's  son-in-law  and  latest  biographer  to  trace  the 
family  name  in  the  parish  archives  back  to  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  at  which  period  numerous 
Pasteurs  were  living  in  the  villages  round  about  the 
Priory  of  Mouthe^  *  en  pleine  Franche-Comt^.' 

The  first  to  emerge  clearly  from  the  confused  cluster  of 
possible  ancestors  is  a  certain  Denis  Pasteur,  who  became 
miller  to  the  Comte  d'Udressier,  after  whom  he  doubtless 
named  his  son  Claude,  bom  in  1683.  Claude  in  his  turn 
became  a  miller,  and  died  in  the  year  1746.  Of  his  eight 
children,  the  youngest,  Claude-Etienne,  was  the  great- 
grandfather of  Louis  Pasteur.  The  inhabitants  of  Franche- 
Comt^  were,  in  large  part,  serfs — '  gens  de  mainmorte,'  as 
they  termed  them  then.  Claude-^tienne,  being  a  serf, 
at  the  age  of  thirty  wished  to  enfranchise  himself ;  and 
this   he  did  in  1763,  by  the  special  grace  of  'Messire 


PASTEUR   AND   HIS   DISCOVERIES         886 

Philippe  -  Marie  -  FrancoiSt  Comte  d'TTdressier,  Seigneur 
d*£2cleux,  Cramans,  Lemuy,  et  autres  lieux,'  and  on  the 
payment  of  four  louis-dor.  He  subsequently  married  and 
had  children.  His  third  son,  Jean-Henri,  who  for  a  time 
carried  on  his  father's  trade  of  tanner  at  Besan^n,  seems 
to  have  disappeared  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven,  leaving  a 
small  boy,  Jean-Joseph  Pasteur,  bom  in  1791,  who  was 
brought  up  by  his  grandmother  and  his  father's  sister. 

Caught  in  the  close  meshes  of  Napoleon's  conscription, 
Jean- Joseph  served  in  the  Spanish  campaign  of  1812-13,  as 
a  private  in  the  third  regiment  of  infantry,  called  'le  brave 
parmi  les  braves.'  In  course  of  time  he  was  promoted  to 
be  sergeant-major,  and  in  March  1814  received  the  Cross 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  Two  months  later  the  abdica- 
tion had  taken  place ;  and  the  regiment  was  at  Douai,  re- 
organising under  the  name  of  *  Regiment  Dauphin.'  Here 
was  no  plax^e  for  Jean-Joseph,  devoted  to  the  Imperial 
Eagle  and  unmoved  by  the  Fleur-de-lys.  He  received  his 
discharge,  and  made  his  way  across  country  to  his  father's 
town,  Besan^on.  At  Besangon  he  took  up  his  father's 
trade  and  became  a  tanner ;  and,  after  one  feverish  flush 
during  the  Hundred  Days,  and  one  contest,  in  which  he 
came  off  victor,  with  the  Royalist  authorities,  who  would 
take  his  sword  to  arm  the  town  police,  he  settled  down 
into  a  quiet,  law-abiding  citizen,  more  occupied  with  do- 
mestic anxieties  than  with  the  fate  of  empires. 

Hard  by  the  tannery  ran  a  stream,  called  La  Furieuse, 
though  it  rarely  justified  its  name.  Across  the  stream 
dwelt  a  gardener  named  Roqui;  amongst  the  gardener's 
daughters  one  Jeanne-il^tiennette  attracted  the  attention 
of,  and  was  attracted  by,  this  old  campaigner  of  twenty- 
five  years.  The  curious  persistence  of  a  family  in  one 
place,  combined  with  the  careful  preservation  of  parish 
records,  enables  M.  Yallery-Radot  to  trace  the  family 
Roqui  back  to  the  year  1555.  We  must  content  ourselves 
with  Jeanne-!^tiennette,  who  in  1815  married  Jean-Joseph. 
Shortly  afterwards  the  young  couple  moved  to  Ddle  and 
set  up  house  in  the  Rue  des  Tanneurs. 

Louis  Pasteur's  father  was  a  somewhat  slow,  reflective 
man ;  a  little  melancholic,  not  communicative ;  a  man  who 
lived  an  inner  life,  nourished  doubtless  on  the  memories 
of  the  part  he  had  played  on  a  larger  stage  than  a  tannery 
affords.    His  mother,  on  the  other  hand,  was  active  in 


886         PASTEUR   AND   HIS   DISCOVERIES 

business  matters,  hard-working,  a  woman  of  imagination, 
prompt  in  enthusiasm. 

Before  Louis  Pasteur  was  two  years  old,  his  parents 
moved  first  to  Mamoz  and  then  to  a  tannery  situated  at 
the  entrance  to  the  village  of  Arbois ;  and  it  was  Arbois 
that  Pasteur  regarded  as  his  home,  returning  in  later  life 
year  after  year  for  the  scanty  absence  from  his  laboratory 
that  he  annually  allowed  himself.  Trained  at  the  village 
school,  he  repeated  with  his  father  every  evening  the  task 
of  the  day.  He  showed  considerable  talent,  and  his  eager- 
ness to  learn  was  fostered  by  the  interest  taken  in  him 
by  M.  Bomanet,  princii>al  of  the  College  of  Arbois.  At 
sixteen  he  had  exhausted  the  educational  resources  of  the 
village^  and,  after  much  heart-searching  and  anxious  de- 
liberation, it  was  decided  to  send  the  young  student  to 
Paris  to  continue  his  studies  at  the  Lyc^  Saint-Louis.  It 
was  a  disastrous  experiment.  Removed  so  far  from  all 
he  knew  and  loved,  Louis  suffered  from  an  incurable 
home-sickness,  which  affected  his  health.  His  father 
hearing  this  came  unannoimced  to  Paris,  and  with  the 
simple  words  '  Je  viens  te  chercher '  took  him  home.  Here 
for  a  time  he  amused  himself  by  sketching  the  portraits 
of  neighbours  and  relatives,  but  his  desire  to  learn  was 
unquenched,  and  within  a  short  time  he  entered  as  a 
student  at  the  Royal  College  of  Franche-Comt^  at  Besan- 
Qon.  This  picturesque  town,  situated  only  thirty  miles 
from  Arbois,  was  within  easy  reach  of  his  home ;  and, 
above  all,  on  market  days  his  father  came  thither  to  sell 
his  leather. 

At  eighteen  Pasteur  received  the  degree  of  Bachelier 
ks  lettres,  and  almost  immediately  was  occupied  in  teaching 
others ;  but  Paris,  although  once  abandoned,  was  again 
asserting  its  powers  of  attraction,  and  by  the  autumn  of 
1842  he  was  once  more  following  the  courses  at  the  Lyc^ 
Saint-Louis*  He  also  attended  the  brilliant  lectures  of 
Dumas  at  the  Sorbonne,  and  vividly  describes  the  scene : 
*  An  audience  of  seven  or  eight  hundred  listeners,  the  too 
frequent  applause,  everything  just  like  a  theatre.*  At  the 
end  of  his  first  year  in  Paris  he  achieved  his  great  am- 
bition, and  succeeded  in  entering  the  Ecole  Normale,  and 
entering  it  with  credit. 

For  the  last  year  or  two  Pasteur  had  been  studying 
mathematics  and  physics ;  at  the  ^cole  Normale  he  especi- 


«88         PASTEUR   AND   HIS   DISCOVERIES 

ments.  On  examining  the  crystals  of  sodium-ammonium 
salt  of  racemic  acid,  he  noticed  that  certain  facets  giving 
a  degree  of  asymmetry  were  always  found  on  the  crystals 
of  the  optically  active  salts  and  acids.  On  examining 
the  crystals  of  the  racemic  acid,  he  did  not  find,  as  he  had 
expected,  perfect  symmetry,  but  he  saw  that,  whilst  some 
of  the  crystals  showed  these  facets  to  the  right,  others 
showed  them  to  the  left.  In  fact,  sodium-ammonium  race- 
mate  consisted  of  amixtureof  right-handed  and  left-handed 
crystals,  which  neutralised  one  another  as  regards  the 
polarisation  of  light,  and  were  thus  optically  inactive. 
With  infinite  patience  Pasteur  picked  out  the  right-  from 
the  left-handed  crystals,  and  investigated  the  action  of 
their  solutions  on  polarised  light.  As  he  expected,  the  one 
sort  turned  the  plane  of  polarisation  to  the  left,  the  other 
to  the  right.  A  mixture  of  equal  weights  of  the  two  kinds 
of  crystals  remained  optically  inactive.  *  Tout  est  trouv^* 
he  exclaimed ;  and  rushing  from  the  laboratory,  embraced 
the  first  man  he  came  across.  'C'^tait  un  peu  comme 
ArchimMe,'  as  his  biographer  gravely  remarks. 

His  work  immediately  attracted  attention.  Biot,  who 
had  devoted  a  long  and  strenuous  life  to  the  problems  of 
polarisation,  was  at  first  sceptical,  but  after  a  careful 
investigation  was  convinced.  Pasteur  began  to  be  talked 
about  in  the  circle  of  the  Institute. 

In  the  midst  of  these  researches,  Pasteur's  mother  died 
suddenly,  and  her  son,  overwhelmed  with  grief,  remained 
for  weeks  almost  silent  and  unable  to  work.  Shortly  after 
this  we  find  the  old  longing  revived ;  and  Pasteur  sought 
at  any  cost  some  post  near  Arbois,  somewhere  not  quite 
out  of  the  reach  of  those  he  loved.  Besan^on  was  refused 
him,  but  at  the  beginning  of  1840  he  replaced  M.  Persos  as 
Professor  of  Chemistry  at  Strasbourg. 

The  newly  api>ointed  Rector  of  the  Academy  of  Stras- 
bourg, M.  Laurent,  had  already  gained  the  respect  and 
the  affection  of  the  professoriate.  He  and  his  family  were 
the  centre  of  the  intellectual  life  of  the  town.  Within  a 
few  weeks  of  his  arrival,  Pasteur  addressed  to  the  Rector 
a  letter,  setting  forth  in  simple  detail  his  worldly  position 
and  asking  the  hand  of  his  daughter  Marie  in  marriage. 
The  wedding  took  place  on  the  20th  May,  1850 ;  and  there 
is  a  tradition  that  Pasteur,  immersed  in  some  chemical  ex- 
periment, had  to  be  fetched  from  the  laboratory  to  take 


PASTEUR   AND    HIS    DISCOVERIES         408 

sultations  with  his  assistants  and  the  most  anxious  de- 
liberations, he  consented  to  the  inoculation  of  the  boy. 
The  next  fortnight  was  a  time  of  intense  anxiety,  but 
all  went  well.  His  second  patient  is  commemorated  by 
the  bronze  statue  which  ornaments  the  front  of  the 
Pasteur  Institute  in  Paris.  It  represents  the  struggle 
between  a  peasant  boy  armed  only  with  his  sabot,  and  a 
niad  dog ;  the  boy  was  terribly  bitten,  but  the  treatment 
saved  his  life.  It  is  not  easy  to  arrive  at  an  accurate 
estimate  of  the  death-rate  caused  by  rabies ;  but  the  most 
careful  and  moderate  estimates  show  that,  before  this 
treatment  was  in  use,  some  fifteen  to  twenty  out  of  every 
hundred  persons  bitten  by  mad  dogs  died  a  most  painful 
and  horrible  death.  During  the  last  fotirteen  years,  over 
23,000  persons  known  to  have  been  bitten  by  rabid  dogs 
have  been  inoculated  at  the  Pasteur  Institute ;  and  their 
average  mortality  has  been  0*4  per  cent.  In  1800,  the 
latest  year  for  which  statistics  are  available,  1614  cases 
were  treated,  with  a  mortality  of  0*25  per  cent.  Of  these 
1506  were  French  and  108  were  foreigners.  Of  the  108 
foreigners,  12  came  from  Great  Britain  and  62  from 
British  India.  It  is  little  short  of  a  national  disgrace 
that  we  should  still  be  dependent  on  French  aid  to  succour 
those  amongst  us  who  are  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  bitten 
by  a  mad  dog;  but  the  nation  which  gave  the  use  of 
ansBsthetics  to  the  world,  and  which  first  showed  the  value 
of  antiseptics,  is  largely  dependent  to-day  on  foreign  aid 
in  dealing  with  great  outbreaks  of  all  sorts  of  diseases 
within  its  borders.  The  German  Koch  and  the  Russian 
Haffkine  are  called  in  to  cope  with  the  cholera  in  India ; 
we  fall  back  upon  the  Swiss  Yersin  and  the  Japanese 
Kitasato  to  elucidate  the  true  nature  of  plague,  and  to 
devise  methods  for  combating  its  ravages.  When  rinder- 
pest breaks  out  in  South  Africa  it  is  again  to  Koch  that  we 
turn.  The  unsatisfactory  position  of  Great  Britain  in 
these  noatters  is  to  some  extent  due  to  a  small  but  active 
section  of  society  whose  affection  for  their  lap-dogs  has 
overpowered  their  sense  of  duty  to  their  neighbours.  It 
is,  however,  we  fear,  still  more  due  to  the  unintelligent 
treatment  of  men  of  science  by  the  Government  of  the 
coimtry,  and  to  the  want  of  appreciation  of  the  value  of 
science  shown  by  society  at  large.  If,  to  balance  the  list 
given  a  few  lines  above,  we  recall  the  work  of  our  coimtry- 


NAVY   BOILERS  407 

It  was  at  once  cordially  welcomed  by  the  English  technical 
press,  partly  because  it  was  the  only  book  in  which  water- 
tube  boilers  were  treated  in  an  exhaustive  manner,  but 
chiefly  on  account  of  the  author's  extensive  experience  as 
Director  of  Naval  Construction  and  head  of  the  Technical 
Department  in  the  French  Navy.  The  information  pub- 
lished was  entirely  practical,  and  much  of  it  was  new, 
while  the  opinions  expressed  were  absolutely  without  bias. 
In  the  hands  of  Mr  Robertson,  who  is  not  merely  a  trans* 
lator,  but  also  an  engineer  of  wide  experience,  the  work 
has  been  improved  in  some  respects.  The  original  text 
has  been  adhered  to,  except  that  certain  sections,  in  which 
the  ground  was  already  covered  by  standard  English 
works,  have  been  abridged.  But  other  sections  of  special 
importance  have  been  extended  and  brought  up  to  date ; 
metric  figures  converted  into  English;  and  a  full  index 
added,  so  that  for  the  English  reader  the  translation  is 
handier  than  the  originaL  There  is  no  water-tube  boiler 
of  importance  which  is  not  illustrated  and  described  in  its 
pages.  The  accounts  given  are,  moreover,  not  merely 
descriptive,  for  the  scientific  facts  which  underlie  the  prac- 
tical problems  involved  are  clearly  explained.  In  the 
preparation  of  this  article  we  have  also  availed  ourselves 
of  data  supplied  by  most  of  the  leading  firms  of  boiler- 
makers,  and  of  numerous  technical  articles  in  the  engin- 
eering journals. 

The  boiler  question  has  arisen  in  consequence  of  the 
enormous  steam  pressure  at  which  modem  engines  have 
to  be  worked  to  propel  battleships  at  high  speeds.  During 
a  quarter  of  a  century  the  pressures  in  steam  boilers  have 
been  increased  from  25  lb.  per  square  inch  to  250  lb.  An 
incident  easily  recalled  by  those  in  middle  life  is  the  ter- 
rible explosion  of  the  boilers  of  the  Thunderer  in  1876,  by 
which  forty  men  lost  their  lives  and  over  seventy  were 
injured.  The  working  pressure  on  those  boilers  was  only 
30  lb.  on  the  square  inch.  This  fact  indicates  how  radi- 
cally the  question  has  changed  within  a  generation. 

In  offering  a  non-technical  explanation  of  the  diffi- 
culties which  surround  this  problem,  it  is  necessary  to 
refer  briefly  to  what  has  happened  in  the  Navy  in  regard 
to  the  types  which  are  either  obsolete  or  rapidly  becoming 
BO.  We  know,  ai>art  from  mathematical  demonst***^^'"*" 
that  a  plane  surface  is  less  adaptec^  '^  ^  o^ 


408  NAVY    BOILERS 

withstand  pressure.  Now  all  the  early  boilers  of  the 
Thunderer  class  had  flat  surfaces,  which  sufficiently  ac- 
counts for  their  weakness.  They  were  termed  *  box-boilers/ 
and  were,  in  fact,  huge  square  boxes ;  and,  though  their 
broad  areas  were  reinforced  with  bolts  and  stays,  they 
could  not  be  worked  to  more  than  from  25  lb.  to  30  lb.  to 
the  inch.  This  is  the  reason  why  they  were  superseded — 
when  the  necessity  for  higher  power  arose — ^by  cylindrical 
boilers,  in  which  pressures  leaped  at  once  to  55  and  60  lb. 
These  were,  and  are  still,  called  *  Scotch '  boilers,  because 
the  type  was  first  introduced  on  the  Clyde.  The  necessity 
for  still  higher  eng^e-power  g^ew  rapidly  as  battleships 
became  loaded  with  armour ;  and  then  the  limitations  to 
the  thickness  and  size  in  which  boiler-plates  could  be 
manufactured — imposed  by  the  use  of  wrought  iron — 
threatened  to  arrest  further  growth.  It  was  difficult  with 
this  material  to  obtain  with  safety  pressures  of  more  than 
60  to  80  lb.  to  the  square  inch.  But  the  inventions  of 
Bessemer  and  Siemens  appeared  most  opportunely ;  and 
these,  besides  affording  a  material  from  thirty  to  forty 
per  cent,  stronger  than  iron,  permitted  the  casting  and 
rolling  of  plates  much  thicker  and  larger  than  the  iron- 
mills  were  able  to  produce.  Thus  the  Scotch  boiler  took 
on  a  new  lease  of  life.  Nevertheless,  though  larger  and 
thicker  plates  were  roUed,  pressures  increased  in  an  even 
greater  ratio,  until  they  have  now  attained  in  liners  100 
and  200  lb.  to  the  square  inch,  which  appears  to  mark  the 
last  stage  at  which,  for  various  practical  reasons,  it  is 
possible  to  employ  the  Scotch  boiler.  These  pressures, 
however,  are  not  high  enough  for  the  expansion  engines 
of  heavily  laden  armoured  ships  or  swift  torpedo-boats, 
for  which  steam  at  250  lb.  per  inch  is  demanded,  and  in 
certain  cases  used,  while  the  enormous  dead- weight  of  the 
boilers  themselves  is  a  very  serious  drawback.  The  weight 
of  the  Scotch  boiler  has  always  been  so  grave  an  objection 
to  its  employment  on  torpedo-boats,  that,  until  the  advent 
of  the  water-tube  boiler,  the  locomotive  type  was  used. 

The  power  of  the  Scotch  boiler  has  been  increased,  not 
only  by  making  its  plates  thicker,  and  its  dimensions 
larger,  but  also  by  sending  an  artificial  current  of  air 
into  the  furnace.  In  other  words,  instead  of  depending 
on  natural  draught  induced  by  a  chimney,  an  excess  of 
air  is  forced  into  the  furnaces  under  pressure*-*  forced 


410  NAVY    BOILERS 

and  upwards  in  locomotive  and  marine  boilers,  steam 
would  not  be  generated  with  sufficient  rapidity  to  main- 
tain the  requuite  speed  and  power.  But  the  difference  be- 
tween the  tubular  boiler  of  the  locomotive  or  the  Scotch 
type,  and  the  water-tube  boiler,  is  that,  while  ea«h  has 
hundreds  of  tubes,  fire  and  hot  gases  pass  throngh  the 
tubes  of  the  former,  while  water  circulates  through  those 
of  the  latter.  Having  disposed  of  these  cardinal  facts,  we 
propose  now  to  explain  briefly  the  essential  differences  in 


the  internal  arrangements  of  the  Scotch  tubular  boiler 
and  the  water>tube  boilers. 

The  Scotch  boiler,  when  viewed  from  outside,  shows 
little  to  indicate  its  construction.  It  may  be  likened  to 
a  huge  drum  lying  on  its  side.  A  large  cylindrical  casing, 
or  'shell,'  of  from  10  to  14  feet  in  diameter,  with  flat 
ends,  built  of  thick  steel  plates  strongly  held  together 
with  rivets,  encloses  several  cylindrical  furnaces,  rang- 
ing in  number  from  two  to  eight,  which  are  sur- 
rounded by  the  water  contained  in  the  outer  shelL  The 
furnace-doors  are  in  one  of  the  flat  ends  of  the  drum.    A 


NAVY    BOILERS  417 

in  the  headers,  and  by  the  insertion  of  an  inner  or  water- 
circulating  tube  within  the  outer  or  boiling  tube  (see 
Fig.  5). 

The  German  boiler — ^the  Diirr  (Fig.  6) — in  which  the 


Ftg.  (.—The  NIoUosM  Boiler. 

double  tubes  are  also  employed,  differs  from  the  Niclausse 
in  the  retention  of  flat  water-spaces,  instead  of  the  separa- 
tion into  headers,  as  well  as  in  certain  details  of  fitting  the 
tubes;  but  the  result  is  substantiaUy  the  same.  The  course 


Fig.  S.— CirculAtlon  in  %  Compound  Tnbe  In  the  NIclftoMe  Bouer. 

of  the  water  and  steam  can  be  traced  in  the  illustration  by 
the  arrows.  The  water  descends  from  the  coUector  or 
'  upper  boiler '  into  the  front  portion  of  the  flat  water- 
ehunber,  and  Uience  into  the  inner  tubes;  returning 


420 


NAVY   BOILERS 


farthest  from,  the  fire  form  efficient  circnlating  elements, 
due  to  the  differences  in  weight  of  the  columns  of  mixed 
steam  and  water  in  the  first,  and  of  solid  water  in  the 
second.  Yet  in  the  majority  of  boilers  of  this  class,  the 
down-coming  or  return  tubes  form  an  essential  element 
in  the  circulation.  The  Blechynden  boiler  resembles  the 
Yarrow  in  having  tubes  which  are  nearly  but  not  quite 
straight,  being  slightly  bent  to  permit  of  expansion ;  and 
it  has  no  external  return-tubes. 


Fig-iS.— The  Yarrow  BoUer. 


This  brief  account  of  the  elements  involved  in  the  prin- 
cipal Navy  tyi>es  of  water-tube  boilers  should  deter  one 
from  hasty  conclusions ;  and  if  we  consider  further  what 
requirements  have  to  be  fulfilled  at  sea,  where  every  dis- 
tinct class  of  vessel  steams  under  different  conditions,  the 
folly  of  a  dogmatic  attitude  will  be  yet  more  apparent. 

The  principal  requirements  that  must  be  fulfilled  by 
an  efficient  Navy  boiler  are  as  follows :  occupation  of  the 
miPiTnum  of  space,  reduction  of  weight  as  far  as  practicable. 


484  THE   HOUSING   QUESTION 

moke  and  occupy  a  hovel  on  the  land  to  which  as  a  serf 
he  was  permanently  attacdied.  His  shelter  was  included 
in  the  maintenance  which  by  the  custom  of  his  servitude 
he  was  entitled  to  derive  from  the  soil.  History  is  strangely 
silent  as  to  the  early  social  conditions  of  the  people,  but 
we  know  enough  to  say  that  English  country-folk  in  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  were  worse  housed  than 
any  peasantry  in  Europe  in  the  present  day. 

The  most  wretched  period  of  social  history  is  that  in 
which  the  wants  of  the  family  are  satisfied  by  the  produoe 
of  their  own  holding.  The  self-sufficing  family-life  has 
long  ago  given  place  to  the  8ui>erior  organisation  of 
economic  exchange.  Traces  linger  here  and  there  of  the 
old  order,  and  in  some  respects  the  relation  of  the  agri- 
cultural labourer  to  his  house  is  a  survival  of  this  earlier 
condition  of  things.  Even  at  the  present  day  the  hiring 
of  his  cottage  is  not,  for  the  agricultural  labourer,  an 
economic  exchange  of  shelter  for  rent:  he  is  still  to  a 
certain  extent '  housed.*  The  cottage  he  inhabits  is  part 
of  the  complement  of  the  farm,  and  he  pays  for  it  some- 
thing less  than  an  economic  rent.  The  transaction  is  a 
species  of  '  truck.'  The  labourer,  instead  of  receiving  all  his 
wages  in  coin  of  the  realm,  receives  so  many  shillings  a 
week  and  a  house  at  a  nominal  rent.  The  bargain  is  open 
to  the  objection  which  can  be  made  against  all  forms  of 
'  truck,'  namely  that  there  is  no  secure  standard  of  value. 
A  good  and  a  rich  landlord  may  give  value  to  the  extent 
of  30^.  in  the  pound,  while  a  churlish  or  poor  landlord 
will  or  can  only  give  158.  On  the  whole,  and  espedaUy 
during  the  last  thirty  years,  the  English  landlord  has  not 
been  oblivious  of  the  maxim  noblesse  oblige ;  and  a  great 
improvement  has  taken  place  in  the  cotti^es  of  the  agri- 
cultural labourer.  All  the  same  we  are  glad  to  think  that 
this  improvement  now  rests,  or  is  beginning  to  rest,  on  a 
noiore  secure  economic  basis.  The  latest  reports  from  agri- 
cultural districts  seem  to  show  that  there  is  a  dearth  of 
labour.  Two  masters  are  running  after  one  man ;  and  the 
most  hopeful  sign  of  remedy  for  grievance  under  this  head 
consists  in  the  stronger  economic  position  of  the  labourer. 
If  the  agricultural  interest  wishes  to  retain  the  labourer, 
it  must  give  him  adequate  wages.  It  is  inunaterial  whether 
a  part  of  such  wages  is  paid  in  kind  or  not:  the  main  thing 
is  that  such  kind,  if  any,  shall  represent  good  value.    Our 


486  TttE   HOUSING   QUESTION 

and  indeed  only  began  to  assert  itself  in  the  middle  of 
the  century  which  has  just  expired.  To  come  down  to 
comparatively  recent  times,  the  sanitary  movement  may 
be  said  to  have  be^n  in  the  officcTot  tiie  Jb'oor  Law  Com- 
missioners somewhere  about  the  year  1837.  Under  the  new 
Poor  Law,  auditors  had  disallowed  certam  charges  of  a 
miscellaneous  kind,  some  of  them  in  connexion  with 
sanitation,  which  had  formerly  passed  without  challenge 
under  the  old  parochial  system ;  and  Dr  Amott  and  Dr 
Southwood  Smith  were  employed  to  rei>ort  on  the  sanitary 
condition  of  parts  of  London,  with  a  view  of  throvmig  light 
on  the  question  of  what  charges  of  a  sanitary  character 
ought  to  be  authorised  by  new  legislation.  Their  views  are 
given  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  reports  of  the  Poor  Law 
Commissioners ;  and  most  gruesome  reading  they  furnish. 
A  perusal  of  the  whole  report  will  convince  any  one  that 
the  condition  of  things  at  that  date  far  exceeds  in  horror 
anything  which  the  most  sensational  journalist  can  record 
of  the  present  situation.  We  limit  ourselves  to  one  or 
two  abbreviated  quotations. 

Larnh^  Fields.  Three  hundred  feet  constantly  covered 
summer  and  winter  with  stagnant  water,  and  putrefying  animal 
and  vegetable  matter.  An  open  ditch  encircles  this  place 
eight  to  ten  feet  wide.  Privies  of  all  the  houses  of  a  street 
open  into  this — ^privies  completely  uncovered,  and  the  soil 
from  them  allowed  to  accumulate  in  the  open  ditch. 

Some  cottages  at  Notting  Dale  built  over  stagnant  pools  of 
water,  which  may  be  seen  through  the  interstices  of  the  floors. 
In  some  instances  the  floors  have  given  way,  and  rest  in  the 
stagnant  pool,  while  the  other  end,  being  still  dry,  contains  the 
bed  or  straw  mattress  on  which  the  family  sleep. 

Fleet  Ditch  is  described  as  not  a  small  drain,  but  almost  a 
river  of  filth.  Upon  the  very  edge  of  this  ditch  many  of  the 
poor  have  their  dwellings. 

Htghgate.  A  lodging-house  which  ia  inhabited  by  a  great 
number  of  the  lowest  and  most  abandoned,  three  or  more  in  a 
bed,  which  appears  to  be  never  changed  or  cleaned.  Four  or 
five  beds  in  some  rooms. 

WhiU^B  Rents,  Shuchvell.  Dwellings  of  wood,  inferior  to 
common  cattle-sheds ;  yet,  because  they  had  not  been  pulled 
down,  they  were  inhabited  by  Irish  families,  who  could  not 
aif ord  to  live  elsewhere,  and  were  the  prolific  foci  of  fever  to 
the  surrounding  neighbourhood. 

Alfred  and  Beckioith  Bows*    Heaps  of  filth  accumulated  in 


440  THE   HOUSING   QUESTION 

mitted  to  a  plan  of  sewage  treatment  which  experts  tell 
us  is  radically  unsound. 

Even  if  we  assume,  as  against  Dr  Poore,  that  water 
carriage  of  sewage  is  the  only  practicahle  one  in  large 
towns,  every  one  who  has  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
poorer  class  of  tenants  knows  how  difficult  it  is  to  keep 
the  drains  and  sanitary  arrangements  of  their  houses  in 
good  working  order.  The  system  may  be  convenient  and 
cheap,  but  it  is  not  easily  made  safe  and  sanitary,  especially 
in  the  poorer  tenements. 

This,  then,  is  the  first  difficulty  which  has  to  be  over- 
come. Other  difficulties  may  be  enumerated,  many  of 
them,  like  that  of  sewage,  arising  from  the  nature  of  things. 
For  instance,  the  letting  and  hiring  of  house-room  is  a 
contract  involving  covenants  of  prolonged  duration,  de- 
manding from  a  proletariate  class  a  respect  for  contract 
which  as  yet  is  not  a  fully  developed  instinct.  Every 
lease,  even  of  a  single  room,  implies  an  obligation  on  the 
part  of  the  tenant,  not  only  to  pay  rent,  but  to  use  the 
property  carefully  and  to  return  it,  if  not  in  habitable 
repair,  at  least  without  structural  damage.  Now  any  one 
who  has  experience  of  this  class  of  property  knows  how 
heavy  are  the  losses  from  wilful  damage  and  careless 
neglect.  We  have  ourselves  seen  rooms,  where  window 
frames  have  been  torn  from  their  place,  and  used  pre- 
sumably for  firewood.  Mr  Henry  Spalding,  addressing  the 
Boyal  Institute  of  British  Architects  ('Journal  of  the  Boyal 
Institute  of  British  Architects,'  April  1900),  relates  some  of 
his  experience  as  adviser  to  a  DwisUings  company : — 

'  I  found  I  had  to  specify  some  peculiar  things  in  order  that 
the  Society  might  not  have  the  premises  taken  away  bit  by 
bit  by  the  tenants.  For  instance,  the  wood  skirtings  had  to 
be  taken  up,  and  cement  skirtings  put  in  their  stead,  as  the 
tenants  removed  the  former  to  light  their  fires.  All  lead  pipes 
had  to  be  avoided,  and  iron  substituted,  as  that  could  not  be 
so  easily  removed,  and  was,  moreover,  of  little  value.' 

Bad  tenants  produce  bad  landlords,  and  the  rift  between 
the  two  classes  easily  extends.  Each  party  is  apt  to  pro- 
tect himself  by  evading  a  liberal  and  honest  perform- 
ance of  his  contract ;  and  the  breach  grows  irreparable. 
An  analogy,  at  once  close  and  instructive,  is  furnished  by 
the  history  of  usury.    The  instinct,  here  also,  towarda 


THE   HOUSING   QUESTION  441 

evaBion,  when  an  onerous  covenant  has  to  be  performed, 
is  very  strong.  Instead  of  the  helpful  relations  which 
obtain  between  a  banker  and  his  customers,  we  are  apt 
to  find,  in  the  humbler  transactions  of  credit,  mutual  and 
unfortunately  weU-grounded  distrust  between  the  money-* 
lender  and  his  victim.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  exposi- 
tions of  the  true  beneficence  of  the  economic  order  is  to 
be  found  in  the  successful  restoration  of  just  fiduciary 
relations  between  lenders  and  borrowers  of  humble  means 
which  has  been  carried  out  by  the  co-operative  banking 
system  of  Baiffeisen  and  his  imitators,  in  Germany  and 
Italy,  and  for  which  a  promising  start  has  been  obtained 
by  Mr  Horace  Plunkett  in  Ireland. 

It  is  to  this  same  principle  that  we  must  ascribe  the 
success  of  the  system  of  house  management  inaugurated 
by  Miss  Octavia  Hill,  and  described  in  the  little  book  named 
at  the  head  of  this  article.*  Anyone  can  build  a  house, 
but  it  requires  a  great  deal  of  tact  and  patience,  when  it 
is  let  to  rough  tenants,  to  preserve  their  good-will,  to  in- 
duce them  to  adopt  the  habits  of  discipline  required  by  our 
associated  life,  to  obtain  their  aid  in  gradually  improving 
the  accommodation,  and  withal  to  earn  a  reasonable  in- 
terest on  the  money  invested.  It  is  worth  while  noticing 
that  this  educational  work,  which  really  holds  one  key  of 
the  situation,  has  not  been,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  can- 
not be,  touched  by  the  local  authorities  who  have  entered 
on  the  trade  of  builders,  nor,  except  to  a  very  limited  ex- 
t^it,  by  the  great  Industrial  Dwellings  companies. 

These  companies  have  practically  picked  their  tenants. 
One  (the  East  End  Dwellings  Go.)started with  the  professed 
object  of  catering  for  the  lowest  class,  but  large  blocks  in- 
habited by  rough  tenants  proved  very  difficult  to  manage ; 
and  now  practically  all  of  the  Dwellings  companies  take 
the  position  that  they  must  provide  for  the  better  class  of 
artisan,  who  presumably  vacates  quarters  which  are  filled 
by  the  poorer  class.  The  County  Council  has  been  met  by 
the  same  difSculiy,  and  admittedly  has  followed  the  pre- 
cedent of  the  companies.  This  point  of  view  is  of  great 
importance,  for  the  difficulty  is  not  to  be  overcome  by  a 
mere  extension  of  building,  necessary  though  that  may 
be.   Nor  is  the  case  met  by  enacting  penalties  i^ainst  bad 

•  Cf.  Mi88  HiU'8  Taluable  letter  to  the  'Times,*  March  4th,  1001. 


442  THE   HOUSING   QUESTION 

landlords,  for,  as  Bentham  long  ago  showed  in  the  case  of 
usury,  such  penalties  only  oblige  the  landlord  to  raise  his 
terms  against  his  tenants.  There  is  among  the  poorest 
class  a  certain  deficiency  of  sanitary  sense,  which  consti- 
tutes a  large  part  of  the  difficulty  of  providing  them  with 
good  accommodation. 

A  still  moi*e  serious  diffictdty  is  created  by  the  rates. 
Our  system  of  local  rating  may  be  defended  on  the  ground 
that  it  is  an  income  tax,  assessed  on  the  value  of  the  rate- 
payer's house — a  rough  but  not  ineqtdtable  method  of  esti- 
mating his  ability  to  pay.  Not  only  has  he  to  pay  for  ser- 
vices which  have  hitherto  been  performed  for  him  by 
the  rating  authority,  but  of  late  years  we  have  seen 
a  considerable  enlargement  of  the  doctrine  of  parochial 
and  civic  status.  Poor-relief  on  more  elaborate  and  costly 
scale,  education,  libraries,  and  many  other  advanti^;es 
have  been  secured  to  individuals,  not  as  the  result  of 
contract,  but  as  perquisites  of  their  status  as  citizens. 
We  pass  no  opinion  on  the  policy,  but  it  is  perfectly  obvious 
that,  as  Mr  Spencer  has  remarked,  we  cannot  build  in  this 
way  without  unbuilding  to  a  corresponding  extent  eke- 
where.  When  a  poor  man  pays  his  rent,  he  is  paying  not 
only  for  his  house-room,  but  for  his  share  in  certain  other 
things  which  are  being  done  for  him.  Speakii^  roughly, 
about  one-fourth  of  the  sum  which  thetown  workman  pays, 
nominally  for  rent,  is  not  for  rent,  but  for  rates.  Public 
opinion,  in  its  anxiety  to  promote  the  relief  and  education 
of  the  poor,ha8  brought  it  about  that  between  3d.and  4cl.  of 
every  shilling  paid  in  rent  is  taken  by  the  public  authority  to 
pay  for  many  admirable  things  which  have  nothing  to  do 
with  houses.  There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  idle  talk  about 
the  incidence  of  rates.  The  main  point  is  that  if  landlords 
retain  for  themselves  only  8d.  or  OcL  out  of  the  shilling, 
paying  the  balance  to  the  public  authority,  supply  will  be 
restricted  until  the  demand  has  forced  up  the  rent  to  a 
sum  sufficient  to  pay  the  normal  rate  of  interest  as  well 
as  the  sum  due  to  the  public  authority. 

All  of  these  causes  have  prevented  the  rapid  increase 
and  improvement  of  houses.  Demand  and  supply  have 
never  got  into  sufficientiy  dose  touch  to  ensure  the  ad- 
vantages which  free  trade  elsewhere  inevitably  produces. 
Progress  in  this  matter  has  lagged  so  far  behind  knowledge 
and  expectation  tiiat  legislation  has  been  deemed  neoessaiy. 


4^.  THE   HOUSING. QUESTION 

Within  the  last  ten  years  two  new  influences  have 
made  themselves  felt,  and  inoreased  the  difficulty  of  an 
already  difficult  situation.  There  has  been  a  rise  in  the 
cost  of  building,  estimated  at  over  thirty  per  cent.  This 
is  partly  due  to  dearer  materials,  but  mainly  to  dearer 
labour.  It  has  become  therefore  more  and  more  difficult 
to  put  a  good  house  on  the  market  at  a  price  which  the 
workman  will  pay  without  bitter  complaint.  The  high 
price  of  n:iaterials  has,  we  believe,  to  a  certain  extent 
beg^n  to  cure  itself  by  the  natural  operation  of  the 
market.  The  high  wages  of  artisans  engaged  in  all 
branches  of  the  building  trade  are  due,  it  may  be  hoped, 
to  more  permanent  causes.  The  prosperous  trade  of  the 
country,  the  rise  of  agricultural  wages,  tending  to  check 
the  townward  migration  of  labour,  and  generally  the 
greater  mobility  which  enables  the  labourer  to  avoid  a 
falling  and  seek  a  rising  market  for  his  services,  are  legiti* 
mate  advantages  based  on  stable  causes,  and  are  not  likely 
to  be  removed,  but  rather  to  be  enhanced  by  the  opera- 
tion of  economic  competition.  Part  of  the  increase,  it  is 
alleged,  is  due  to  less  legitimate  causes.  To  some  extent 
it  is  due  not  to  the  demand  of  the  market,  reflected,  as  it 
were,  from  the  greater  prosperity  of  the  rest  of  the  popu* 
lation,  but  to  the  coercive  action  of  trade  unions.  The 
different  operations  of  the  building  trade  are  divided  up 
among  artisans  as  if  they  were  members  of  distinct 
oriental  castes — a  senseless  and  costly  restriction  on  enter- 
prise. Further,  it  is  complained  on  all  sides  by  employers 
that  work  is  unduly  protracted,  and  that,  though  higher 
wages  are  paid,  less  work  is  done.  All  these  devices  for 
increasing  sectional  and  temporary  gain,  at  the  cost  of 
the  general  industrial  efficiency,  are  detrimental  to  the 
workman  in  the  long  run,  and  to  the  consumer,  as  well 
as  to  the  employer ;  and,  in  so  far  as  they  are  carried  out 
by  coercion,  they  deserve  reprobation. 

This  rise  of  cost  has  put  a  check  on  private  enterprise ; 
and  the  diminished  prospect  of  profit  has,  by  a  strange 
inconsequence,  brought  new  competitors  into  the  field. 
Owing  to  the  alleged  inability,  of  private  enterprise  to 
meet  the  emergency,  the  London  County  Council  and  the 
Borough  Councils  are  now  embarking  on  the  industry  of 
house-building.  To  the  scientific  observer  this  has  for 
some  time  api>eared  inevitable.    So  long  ago  as  1851  Mr 


THE    HOUSING    QUESTION  447 

for  carrying  out  (let  us  say)  a  spirited  recreation  policy, 
wherel^  the  younger  members  of  its  subject  population 
may  obtain  cpnvenient  cubic  spaces  for  rope-skipping, 
peg-topping,  and  cricket— a  benevolent  proposal  wbich 
woiild  excite  much  enthusiasm.  What,  again,  is  the 
proper  scale  ^t  comfort  which  ought  to  obtain  in  a  work- 
man'9  dwelling  ?  Ought  it,  for  instance,  to  have  a  service 
of  hot  and  cold  water  all  over  the  house  ?  The  answer  in 
earlier  day^  w:as ;  Certainly,  if  the  tenant  is  willing  and 
able  to  pay  for  it.  Under  a  munici]>al  monopoly  this  will 
be  Battled  by  public  debate  and  impassioned  appeal  to  the 
eternal  fitness  of  things. 

Elementary  education  has  been  made  a  municipa. 
monopoly.  The  nature  of  the  teaching,  and  the  religious 
dogfmas  to  be  imparted  to  the  children,  have  become  the 
subject  of  bitter  party  recriminations.  The  positions  and 
salaries  of  the  staff  are  largely  dictated  by  the  Teachers' 
Union.  Education  is  a  great  public  boon,  and  these  are 
inconveniences  which  we  ppiust  bear.  The  system,  however, 
it  nuQT  be  noted,  is  workable  only  because  the  beneficiaries 
(i.«.  the  parents,  and  childrep)  for  the  most  part  adopt  an 
oV9trvictiTe9  rather  than,  a  propulsive  attitude.  ,If».as  is 
proposed,  the  housing  industry  is  cut  adrift  from  the 
market*  and  entrusted  as  a  public  service  to  popularly 
elected  bodies  such  as  County  and  Borough  Councils,  their 
procedune  will  draw  a  continuous  running  fire  of  agitation 
not  only  from  their'  employ^,  but  from  their  tenants. 
It  has  been  suggested  by  the  town  clerk  of  Birmingham, 
himself  an  ardent  advocate  of  municipal  enterprise,  that 
munidipal  employes  should  be  disqualified  as  voters. 
This  seems  a  reasonable  suggestion,  but  it  would  be  im- 
practicable to  deprive  municipal  tenants  of  a  vote.  Al- 
ready, we  are  informed,  in  certain  provincial  towns  where 
the  municipality  has  entered  into  the  building  trade,  the 
risk  of  corruption  appears  so  formidable  that  publib 
opinion  strongly  favours  a  transfer  of  the  municipal  houses 
to  a  non-political  trust.  Even  with  this  saf eg^uard,  it  is 
not  easy  to  see  how  the  danger  of  corruption  is  to  be 
avoided. 

It  seems  to  us  inevitable  that  the  business  element  in 
the  municipal  supply  of  houses  will  be  thrust  out,  and  that 
the  system  will  become  a  disreputable  mixture  of  politics 
and  dliariiy.    When  the  monopoly  of  new  houses  has  been 

2  H  2 


450  THE    HOUSING    QUESTION 

thus  reducing  the  proportionate  rent  of  cottages  by  at 
least  a  shilling  a  week.'  No  notice  seems  to  have  been 
taken  of  the  ^  stroke  of  the  pen  *  that  had  for  so  long  de- 
prived the  poor  of  this  very  obvious  convenience.  To  this 
demand  Mr  Long  has  promised  favourable  consideration.* 
The  point  is  of  considerable  importance,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  the  vast  majority  of  the  London  poor  live  in  streets  of 
cottages.  Most  of  this  property  is  held  tn  building  leases 
granted  in  the  first  half  of  last  century,  and  many  of  them 
are  now  falling  in.  Opportunities  for  reconstruction  are 
therefore  becoming  frequent*  Cottages  will  have  to.,  give 
place  to  more  commodious  buildings.  The  tendency  of  exist- 
ing bye-laws  is  to  obstruct  inexpensive  alterations.  Larger 
schemesof  rebuilding  require  capital  and  the  intervention  of 
the  big  Dwellings  companies.  Many  of  these  have  already 
large  estates,  and,  in  the  present  unpropitious  state  of  the 
trade,  are  inclined  to  hold  their  hands.  The  expiring 
leaseholds  are  often  in  fairly  good  repair,  though  occa- 
sionally demolition  and  rebuilding  will  be  necessary. 
There  is  here  a  considerable  opening  for  enterprise  of  a 
semi-philanthropic  character,  or  perhaps  for  corporate 
eflFort  on  the  part  of  congregations  of  rich  neighbourhoods. 
Dole-giving  is  happily  out  of  fashion;  and,  as  missions 
from  richer  communities,  churches,  colleges,  and  schools 
appear  to  be  popular,  we  venture  respectfully  to  recom- 
mend the  business  of  house-management  as  a  suitable 
outlet  for  their  effort.  This  might  be  attempted  either  on 
the  plan  of  Miss  Octavia  Hill,  or  by  the  erection  of  model 
dwellings  with  the  advice  and  assistance  of  the  success- 
ful Dwellings  companies.  It  is  here,  in  larger  dwellings 
erected  on  the  vast  area  now  covered  by  leasehold  cottages, 
and  not  in  the  suburban  e8tate9  about  to  be.  developed  by 
the  London  County  Council,  that  the  labouring  population 
of  London  will  probably  prefer  to  live. 

Again,  with  regard  to  rebuilding  on.  cleared  areas  in 
the  central  parts  of  London,  very  interesting  economic 
problems  arise,  which  are  quite  as  difficult  for  municipal 
as  for  private  enterprise.  Owing  to  the  terms  of  the 
clearance  Acts,  and  to  the  public  spirit  of  great  landlords 
like  the  late  Duke  of  Westminster^  certain  areas  have 
been  devoted,  at  prices  much  below  their  market  rate,  to 

«  •  StaniUrd,'  March  6th,  1601. 


HUMANISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  461 

63tactness  *  of  Montaigne ;  of  the  '  inmost  religious  pla- 
cidity' of  Wordsworth.  Equally  happy  is  his  charac- 
terisation of  Plato,  compressed  into  one  succinct  sentence : 
'  his  temperance  or  austerity,  aesthetically  so  winning,  is 
attained  only  by  the  chastisement,  the  control,  of  a 
variously  interested,  a  richly  sensuous  nature';  or  the 
telling  manner  of  describing  the  first  effects  of  the  Re- 
naissance: 'how  deeply  the  human  mind  was  moved  when, 
at  the  Renaissance,  in  the  midst  of  a  frozen  world,  the 
buried  fire  of  ancient  art  rose  up  from  under  the  soil.' 

Pater's  characteristic  style  is  Hellenic,  not  so  much  in 
its  blitheness,  for  it  is  less  expressive  of  human  joyousness 
in  the  spring-time  of  life  than  of  the  mellow  maturity  of 
autumn,  as  in  the  quality  of  ripeness  which,  as  in  the 
Hellenic  ideal,  he  tells  us,  comes  'of  a  culture  minute, 
severe,  constantly  renewed,  rectifying,  and  concentrating 
its  impressions  into  certain  pregnant  types  .  .  •  selecting, 
transforming,  recombining  the  images  it  transmits,  ac- 
cording to  the  choice  of  the  imaginative  intellect.'  To  this 
must  be  added  the  ineffable  charm  of  a  sober  but  never 
morbid  tone  of  melancholy  which  pervades  his  writings. 
It  is  not '  that  faintness  and  obscure  dejection  which  clung 
like  some  contagious  damp '  to  Coleridge's  work,  as  Pater 
puts  it  in  his  '  Appreciations';  nor  is  it  the  ennui  of  modem 
Parnassians  of  the  Degenerate  type;  it  is  the  melancholy 
of  introspection  in  an  age  when  old  and  new  faiths  meet, 
in  a  transitional  period  which  laments  the  lapse  of  the 
old  and  struggles  with  groping  hands  to  take  hold  of 
the  new.  This  leaves  a  hazy  blurred  effect  on  one's  mind ; 
it  is  exhibited  in  '  Marius  the  Epicurean '  and  *  Gtaaton  de 
Latour,'  and  vividly  suggests  a  similar  state  of  mind  in 
our  own  day.  For  this  reason,  too.  Pater  appears  at  times 
enigmatic :  yet  there  is  no  lack  of  lucidity  in  his  style.  It 
is  illuminated,  moreover,  as  in  the  case  of  the  enigmatic 
owner  of  the  harp  and  the  bow  whom  he  paints  in '  Apollo 
in  Picardy,'  by  a  seductive  charm  of  colour  and  tone ; 
whilst  the  magic  of  the  impression  is  not  that  of  instant- 
aneous perception,  but  lingers  on  the  mind  as  an  imago 
seen  through  a  medium,  the  '  grey-blue '  mist  produced  by 
his  peculiar  genius.  Compared  with  Ruskin,  whose  manner 
is  equally  peculiar  to  himself,  it  might  be  said  that  Pater's 
style  attracts  by  its  subdued  lustre,  whilst  that  of  Ruskin 
overpowers  with  its  copious  effulgence.  Both  are  masters 
Vol,  198.— No.  386.  2  i 


HUMANISM   AMD   CHRISTIANITY  4t8 

unite  what  is  best  in  the  Pagan  and  the  Christian  ideals, 
after  the  manner  of  Dante — ^in  ministering  at  once  to  the 
senseof  beauty  and  spiritual  devotion.  It  explains  Pater's 
love  for  mediaBvalism,  and  the  attraction  which  its  esthetic 
forms  of  vrorship  exercise  on  cultured  minds  generally, 
irrespective  of  the  doctrines  it  is  supposed  to  symbolise. 
Nor  does  this  tendency  to  religious  devotion  simply 
arise  from  a  desire  to  satisfy  a  'mystical  appetite  for 
sacred  things/  or  to  still  the  cravings  of  the  spiritual  side 
of  human  nature ;  it  is  rather  an  effort  of  the  cultured 
mind  to  express  its  aspiration  after  *a  sacred  ideal,  a 
transcendent  version,  or  representation,  under  intenser 
and  more  expressive  light  and  shade,  of  human  life.*  It 
clings,  with  a  tender  tenacity,  to  some  residual  essentials 
of  religion,  after  eliminating  those  doctrinal  accretions 
which,  to  the  modem  humanist,  have  lost  their  value. 

Some  very  interesting  illustrations  of  this  state  of 
mind  are  given  in  Pater's  *  Imaginary  Portraits.'  Here 
the  artist  stands  modestly  behind  his  creations,  never 
consciously  obtruding  his  own  impressions  and  opinions, 
yet  involuntarily  betraying  them  in  his  intent  to  give  a 
faithful  representation  of  the  residts  of  religious  conten- 
tion during  seasons  of  transition,  when  cultured  thought, 
no  longer  satisfied  with  popular  forms  of  religion,  tries  to 
reconcile  newly  discovered  or  re-discovered  truths  with 
old  traditions. 

Thus,  for  example,  in  the  case  of  the  Gtorman  Count, 
we  see  the  working  of  a  mind  awakened  by  the  discovery 
of  an  old  Latin  poem  by  Conrad  Celtes,  *  the  hjrperborean 
Apollo,'  sojourning  in  the  sluggish  North  for  a  season; 
and  this  suggests  a  course  of  humanistic  culture.  The 
Count  turns  his  mind  to  art,  music,  and  poetry,  and  the 
philosophy  which  interprets  the  life  of  man.  He  finds, 
however,  that  the  way  to  perfection  lies  not  altogether 
in  that  direction,  that  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Hellenistic 
land  of  promise  does  not  conduct  him  thither,  but  that 
'  straight  through  life,  straight  through  nature  and  man, 
with  one's  own  self-knowledge  as  a  light  thereon,  not  by 
way  of  the  geographical  Italy  or  Oreece,  lay  the  road  to  the 
new  Hellas,  to  be  realised  now  as  the  outcome  of  home- 
bom  German  genius.'  In  other  words,  humanism  pure 
and  simple  fails  to  satisfy  the  finest  minds  completely. 

What  Pater  puts  thus  vaguely  and  tentatively  into  the 


HUMANISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY  477 

by  means  of  *  scientific  exorcisms  of  old  orthodox  ghosts, 
restore  their  own/  and  go  no  further.  With  these,  how- 
ever, we  are  not  here  concerned,  but  rather  with  those 
gentler  spirits  who,  though  fearless  in  speculation,  and 
not  deficient  in  intellectual  integrity,  maintain  a  cautious 
reserve,  a  *  fixed  stability/  a  calm  attitude  of  suspense  in 
arriving  at,  or  giving  voice  to,  definite  religious  opinions. 
We  refer  to  those  in  whom  the  search  after  truth  is  mainly 
confined  to  matters  relating  to  literature  and  art,  whose 
'scholarship  attains  to  something  of  a  religious  colour,' 
or  *  the  contemplation  of  what  is  beautiful — a  sort  of  per- 
petual service/  Thus,  in  his  essay  on  M^rim^,  Pater 
shows  how  these  transfer  to  art  and  literature  that  high 
sense  of  dnisy  which  inspires  others  in  their  search  after 
religious  truth,  and  in  this  way  produce  work  almost 
flawless  in  its  quality.  In  the  worship  of  genius,  and  the 
supreme  devotion  to  culture,  they  display  an  attenuated 
amount  of  enthusiasm  for  religious  research,  and  their 
creed  assumes  accordingly  slight  proportions.  Their  state 
of  mind  is  admirably  described  in  the  following  passage, 
taken  from  the  essay  referred  to,  though  Prosper  M^rim^ 
goes  beyond  what  follows  in  his  negations. 

'Fundamental  belief  gone,  in  ahnost  all  of  us,  at  least 
some  relics  of  it  remain — queries,  echoes,  reactions,  after- 
thoughts ;  and  they  help  to  make  an  atmosphere,  a  mental  at- 
mosphere, hazy  perhaps,  yet  with  many  secrets  of  soothing 
light  and  shade,  associating  more  definite  objects  to  each  other 
hy  a  perspective  pleasant  to  the  inward  eye  against  a  hoi)e- 
f  ully  receding  background  -  of  remoter  and  ever  remoter 
possibilities.' 

This  is  all  that  is  left — an  exiguous  remainder,  no  doubt ; 
but  more  than  this  modem  humanism  will  not,  or  cannot, 
retain ;  with  less  than  this,  excepting  in  a  few  instances 
here  and  there,  it  will  not  content  itself.  Why  not? 
Because  of  the  irrepressible  feeling  described  as  Seelen- 
aehnauchtf  ^  longing  of  the  soul,'  which  the  enjoyment  of 
the  Mdeal  now,*  intellectual  accomplishments,  artistic 
elegancies,  and  the  like,  cannot  satisfy.  The  modem  man 
of  culture,  like  Pater's  Marius,  finds  that  life  can  alone 
attain  to  something  like  completeness  with 

*the  advent  of  some  new  or  changed  spirit  into  the  world, 
mystic,  inward,  hardly  to  be  satisfied  with  that  wholly  external 
Vol.  198.— lYo.  386.  2  K 


488  THE   GAME   OF    BILLIARDS 

incessantly  till  he  attained  a  perfection  to  which  no  other 
man  had  aspired.  He  soon  became  able  to  make  from  20 
to  50  spots  whenever  he  got  position;  later  on  he  im- 
proved, and  his  best  break  of  346  points  included  104 
consecutive  spot  hazards.  It  was  made  in  Saville  House, 
Leicester  Square,  where  he  had  rooms  in  1860  and  for  some 
years  afterwards. 

He  used  to  play  there  a  good  deal  with  Duf  ton,  who 
was  more  of  a  teacher  than  a  player,  and  who  had  the 
distinction,  as  may  be  learned  from  a  testimonial  presented 
on  the  occasion  of  his  winning  a  game  for  lOOOZ.  from 
E.  Oreen,  of  *  obtaining  •  •  .  the  respect  of  the  various 
noblemen  with  whom  he  played.'  It  is  further  recorded 
that  *  the  high  honour  was  conferred  upon  him  of  being 
selected  by  Earl  Spencer  to  initiate  His  Boyal  Highness 
the  Prince  of  Wales '  in  the  mysteries  of  the  game. 

Boberts  was  at  his  best  during  the  sixties,  and  in  some 
respects — ^notably  in  power  of  cue,  though  it  sounds  strange 
when  the  great  subsequent  advance  of  the  game  is  con- 
sidered— ^that  best  has  never  been  surpassed,  and  possibly 
never  equalled.  He  came  up  to  London  in  1860,  having 
previously  lived  chiefly  in  Manchester  and  Liverpool ;  at 
his  rooms  many  matches  were  played,  and  some  of  the 
best  amateurs  of  the  time  were  to  be  seen.  His  i>osition 
as  champion  or  best  player  was  perfectly  secure;  and 
therefore  the  games  with  Bowles — ^who  gave  him  harder 
work  to  win  when  giving  300  points  than  any  other 
player — and  with  other  competitors,  need  not  be  recalled. 

But  billiards  was  about  to  make  great  and  rapid  ad- 
vances, due  chiefly  to  Boberts's  influence  and  example. 
The  younger  people  came  on  after  their  manner ;  and  by 
1865  the  names  of  Joseph  Bennett,  John  Boberts  junior, 
and  William  Cook  began  to  be  known  as  those  of  players 
of  great  promise,  all  having  a  more  or  less  hereditary 
claim  to  eminence.  Bennett  was  bom  in  1841,  and  had 
three  brothers  who  played  professionally ;  John  Boberts, 
son  of  the  champion,  bom  in  1847,  came  next ;  Cook,  bom 
in  1849,  was  the  youngest.  Bennett  was  perhaps  the  first 
to  give  indication  of  superior  skill,  for  he,  with  Hughes, 
played  Boberts  and  Dufton,  from  whom  they  received 
200  in  1000.  Hughes,  an  experienced  player,  put  Bennett 
in  front  of  John  Boberts  to  play  safety,  thereby  effectu- 
ally crippling  Boberts's  score,  whUst  he  himself  played  out 


TS£  tiAMfi  OF   BILLIARDS  480 

physique  should  have  been  at  his  best,  with  nerve  and 
experience  to  which  no  lad  could  pretend.  His  son  is  now 
64,  and  his  play  has  never  been  finer  than  during  the  past 
ten  years.  The  idea  that  youth  is  essential  to  fine  play 
is  unsound;  it  arises,  no  doubt,  from  the  fact  that  so 
many  promising  players  are  at  i^eir  best  when  about  25 
years  old  or  even  younger,  and  are  all  but  useless  soon 
after ;  this,  however,  is  not  from  age  but  from  the  life  they 
lead.  With  steadiness,  moderation,  and  fair  health,  what 
men  lose  in  activity,  sight,  and  so  on,  after  35,  is  usually,  for 
a  considerable  period,more  than  made  up  by  experience  and 
confidence.  Whatever  the  reason  may  have  been,  Roberts's 
powers  as  a  player  had  begun  to  fail  before  the  match, 
and  it  woidd  have  been  well  if  he  had  retired  instead  of 
playing ;  his  subsequent  rapid  deterioration  and  final  exit 
at  the  Aquarium,  when  a  game  he  attempted  with  Bowles 
had  to  be  stopped  by  the  manager  because  neither  player 
seemed  able  to  end  it,  were  matters  of  regret  to  those  who 
remembered  his  better  days.    He  died  in  1803. 

Cook  was  immediately  challenged  by  John  Roberts 
junior,  who  in  April  1870  gained  a  decisive  victory  by  478 
points  in  1000.  The  result  was  unexpected  and  is  not  easy 
to  explain.  At  starting  3  to  2  was  laid  on  Cook,  but  he 
seemed  to  have  a  presentiment  of  failure.  During  the 
second  hundred  there  was  an  unfortunate  dispute  as  to 
a  cannon,  and  Cook's  nerve  disapi)eared.  As  often  happens 
in  such  cases,  he  had  the  worst  of  luck,  and  Roberts,  seeing 
how  matters  were  going,  took  lOOZ.  to  102.  that  he  would 
win  by  half  the  game.  Sixteen  matches  for  the  champion- 
ship were  played  in  fifteen  years,  three  men  only  becoming 
champion.  Cook,  Bennett,  and  Roberts  junior.  The  last- 
named,  in  his  match  with  Bennett  in  1885,  won  so  decisively 
that  no  challenger  has  since  appeared. 

But  whilst  these  matches  on  small-pocket  tables  were 
being  played,  exhibition  games  on  ordinary  tables  were 
frequent;  and  for  them  the  easier  pockets  were  prefer- 
able. Handicaps  too  came  into  favour,  first  on  the  English 
and  afterwards  on  the  American  system :  in  the  former 
the  defeated  player  retires,  till  two  only  are  left  to  play 
the  final  game-— consequently  many  players  can  enter ;  in 
the  latter  each  player  has  to  meet  the  others  in  succession, 
and  the  winner  is  he  who,  at  the  close  of  the  tournament, 
has  most  games  to  his  credit.  Therefore  competitors  must 


504  THE    RELIEF    OF    KUMASSI 

aggerate.  On  reaching  Bekwai,  it  was  found  that  the 
garrison  there  had  been  withdrawn  to  Esumeja  in  order 
to  watch  more  effectually  a  big  Adansi  camp  about  a  mile 
and  a  half  north-east,  from  which  at  any  moment  an 
incursion  into  the  king's  friendly  territoiy  was  to  be 
expected.  Every  effort  was  naade  to  communicate  with 
the  Governor  in  Kumassi  without  delay,  but  in  spite  of 
huge  rewards  no  one  was  found  willing  to  make  the 
attempt.  Patrols  were  sent  in  every  direction  to  collect 
food  for  the  columns  which  would  be  arriving  later ;  and 
a  strong  palisade  was  run  up,  which  enclosed  a  portion  of 
the  village,  and  provided  a  receptacle  for  munitions  and 
stores  which  could  be  held  against  any  sudden  rush. 

Although  messengers  from  Frahsu  were  unable  as  a 
rule  to  penetrate  the  rebel  Unes  round  Kumassi,  a  few 
appear  to  have  had  the  luck  to  get  out;  but  several 
perished  in  the  attempt.  One  of  those  who  succeeded 
reached  Bekwai  on  June  22nd  with  a  tiny  despatch  in 
French  about  two  inches  square,  in  which  the  Governor 
stated  that  he  could  hold  out  till  June  20th,  but  not  later. 
As  that  date  was  already  past,  the  only  practicable  course 
was  adopted.  Immediate  action  was  impossible ;  but  the 
forces  were  held  ready  to  co-operate  at  any  moment  if  a 
column  from  the  fort  should  attempt  to  break  through. 

On  June  29th  the  king  of  Bekwai  received  news 
through  native  sources  that  the  Gk>vemor  had  broken  out 
some  days  previously  and  was  at  N'kwanta,  intending  to 
proceed  to  the  coast.  Subsequent  enquiries  confirmed 
this  report;  and  a  few  days  later  a  letter  arrived  from  the 
Governor  himself,  ^ving  details  of  the  escape,  in  which 
two  white  ofi&cers  were  killed,  and  fixing  July  15th  as 
absolutely  the  latest  date  up  to  which  the  reduced  garrison 
of  one  hundred  men  with  two  officers  and  a  doctor  could 
hold  out.  The  Governor  further  stated  that  his  intention 
was  to  proceed  to  the  coast  with  the  whole  colunm  and 
the  refugees. 

It  is  always  easy  to  criticise  actions  after  their  occur- 
rence, and  to  point  out  in  the  light  of  later  events  a  course 
which  would  have  given  better  results.  It  is  therefore 
with  some  diffidence  that  we  draw  attention  to  the 
question  whether  the  Governor  would  not  have  acted 
more  wisely  had  he  made  his  retreat  to  the  coast  at  an 
earlier  date.    It  was  doubtless  a  very  difficult  matter  to 


THE    RELIEF    OF    KUMASSI 


519 


MA?  OF  COUNTRY 

BETWfCN 

KUA\ASI 

ANDTHEC0A8T. 


y^  g  ""%        ^ 


Ttt£   RELIEF  OF,  KUMASSt  621 

The  operations  were  not  carried  on  without  consider- 
able losses  on  our  side.  The  total  number  of  Europeans 
of  all  ranks  at  any  time  in  the  field  did  not  exceed  280 ;  of 
these  0  were  killed,  7  died  of  disease,  52  were  wounded, 
62  invalided.  In  the  native  ranks,  numbering  about  3800, 
151  were  killed  or  missing,  680  wounded,  102  died  of  disease. 
Of  the  carriers,  about  10,000  in  number,  45  were  killed  or 
wounded,  430  died  of  disease,  and  50  native  levies  were 
killed.  This  total  is  not  small,  but  it  would  have  been 
very  much  greater  but  for  the  splendid  work  of  the 
medical  officers,  under  Dr  McDowell,  C.M.O.,  to  whom  Sir 
James  Willcocks  in  his  despatches  draws  well-deserved 
attention. 

By  the  middle  of  November  1900,  the  work  of  the 
punitive  columns  was  completed,  and  the  Ashantis  had  no 
desire  for  further  fighting.  They  had  fought  well,  and  can 
certainly  claim  for  the  future  the  treatment  due  to  a 
brave,  if  barbarous  enemy.  While  we  fully  admit  that 
their  customs  and  many  fetish  rites  are  repugnant  to 
civilised  ideas,  it  is  a  great  mistckke  to  consider  the  A  shantis 
as  devoid  of  morality.  That  they  certainly  are  not  so,  the 
negotiations  which  preceded  Major  Morris's  arrival  at 
Kumassi  clearly  prove.  An  armistice  had  been  arranged, 
during  which  one  of  the  refugees  was  shot  while  searching 
for  food;  and  the  Ashantis  at  once  sent  in  word  that  the 
occurrence  was  an  accident,  the  man  having  been  killed  by 
one  of  their  force  who  was  unaware  of  the  arrangement. 
Again,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that,  under  the  rules  of  war,  no 
beleaguered  i>o8t  would  be  allowed  reinforcements  during 
an  armistice,  the  Ashantis  permitted  Major  Morris's  column 
to  pass,  unopposed,  over  two  stockades  and  through  a  lai^e 
war-camp.  It  should  be  stated,  in  explanation  of  what 
might  seem  to  have  been  a  breach  of  the  armistice  on  our 
part,  that  Major  Morris  had  no  notion  that  an  armistice 
had  been  made ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Governor 
was  equally  unaware  that  Major  Morris  was  approaching. 
Upon  the  whole,  the  character  of  the  natives  is  such  that 
in  a  few  years,  under  reasonable  government,  this  colony 
should  develope  large  resources  and  be  a  valuable  imperial 
possession. 


THE  eOtJCATlONAL  OPl>OtlTtIN:iTY       523 

gaps  filled  up,  and  continuiiy  securedt  without  any  loes 
of  the  variety  congenial  to  the  national  temper  and  called 
for  by  national  requirements. 

The  Government  were  by  no  means  blind  to  the  legis* 
lative  possibilities  of  the  situation  thus  presented.  They 
were  constrained  by  considerations  alike  of  honour  and 
of  policy  to  make  some  provision  for  the  relief  of  volun- 
tary schools,  still  educating  more  than  half  of  the  working- 
class  children  of  the  nation,  from  a  pressure  for  which 
their  managers  were  in  no  sense  responsible,  and  which 
had  arisen  from  the  gradual  elevation  of  Departmental 
ideals  in  regard  to  primary  education  and  sanitary  re- 
quirements. Ministers  sought  to  combine  the  fulfilment 
of  this  clear  and  unquestioned  obligation  with  a  scheme 
of  legislation  that  would  provide  local  authorities,  re- 
sembling, in  the  main,  the  type  indicated  by  the  Bryce 
Commission,  for  the  reorganisation  of  secondary  education, 
but  capable  also  of  undertaking  the  supervision  and  control 
of  elementary  education  within  their  respective  areas. 

This  potential  union  of  local  educational  adminis- 
tration was  attempted  not  by  any  general  and  sweeping 
provision  for  the  concentration  of  powers,  but  by  a  com- 
plex combination  of  clauses,  which,  whatever  their  theo- 
retical justification,  lent  themselves  with  unfortunate 
readiness  to  the  arts  of  obstruction.  Thus  the  local 
educational  authority — an  education  committee  which 
was  to  be  appointed  by  the  County  Council  from  within 
and  without  its  own  body,  with  the  proviso  that  the 
County  Council  members  were  to  be  in  a  majority — ^was 
to  act  as,  and  be  substituted  for,  the  school  attendance 
coinmittee  for  every  school  district  in  the  county  not 
having  a  school  board  of  its  own  and  not  being  a  non- 
county  borough.  Moreover,  it  might  by  agreement  with 
the  Education  Department  take  over  the  administration 
of  the  duties  of  the  Department  in  regard  to  the  monies 
provided  by  Parliament,  either  for  primary  education  or 
for  science  and  art  teaching,  in  relation  to  any  schools  in 
the  county,  and  '  in  respect  of  securing  and  certifying  the 
efficiency  of  schools  in  the  county ' — ^a  very  important  and 
wide-reaching  provision.  Further,  if  any  school  board 
weredeclared  by  the  Education  Department  to  be  in  default, 
the  education  authority  for  the  county  comprising  the  dis- 
trict in  question  jnight,  by  order^  be  constituted  the  sehnnl 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  OFJPOItT:UNlTy      SS0 

scheme.  For  in  the  latter  case  the  eleonent  of  '  fight  ^  for 
a  I>articiilar  portion  of  the  education  field  between  two 
elftnoeo  of  authority— one  eauBting  and  the  other  being 
brought  into  ezistence-<*-di8appears. 

A  comprehensive  scheme  involyesi  first  and  above  all, 
the  establishment  of  a  single  local  authority,  with  power 
over  the  whole  field  of  education  within  its  area*  And  in 
favour  of  that  reform  there  is  about  as  near  an  approach 
to  unanimity  among  those  interested  in  the  subject  as  is 
ever  likely  to  be  attained  on  any  large  question  of  domestic 
legislation  in  this  country.  There  is,  it  is  true,  con- 
siderable difference  of  opinion  as  to  whether  the  single 
educational  authority  should  be  elected  ad  hoc  in  each 
area,  or  should  be  formed,  by  indirect  election  and  co^ 
optation,  on  the  general  lines  of  the  local  authority  for 
secondary  education  suggested  by  the  Bryce  Commission. 
Boughly  speaking,  the  friends  of  the  school  board  system 
appear  to  favour  the  former  plan,  and  other  educationalists 
generally  the  latter.  The  question  is  undoubtedly  impor- 
tant, and  we  ourselves  hold  very  strongly  the  view  that, 
on  grounds  alike  of  education  and  of  general  administra- 
tion, the  concentration  of  responsibility  in  the  County 
Council  is  the  better  plan.  A  County  or  County  Borough 
Council  Education  Conmdttee,  strengthened  by  co-opted 
members  from  outside,  would  be  less  likely  to  divide  on 
sharp  party  lines  than  a  County  or  County  Borough  Edu- 
cation Board  resulting  from  household  suffrage.  It  would 
also,  in  our  opinion,  be  much  more  certain  to  include  a 
proper  proportion  of  persons  of  special  educational  com- 
petence. The  question  of  the  method  of  appointment  of 
the  single  education  authority,  though  important,  is  after 
all  one  of  detail,  which  could  be  debated  and  determined  in 
Parliament  without  any  approach  to  passion  or  bitterness. 
We  may,  however,  remark  here  that,  in  our  opinion,  and, 
we  imagine,  in  that  of  most  persons  who  are  favourable 
to  the  reinforced  Committee  ctf  the  County  or  County 
Borough  Council  as  the  single  local  education  authority, 
it  is  certaii^ly  desirable  that,  in  the  first  instance,  tbJs 
authority  should  include  a  distinct  leaven  of  members 
representing  the  special  knowledge  and  experience  which 
have  been  acquired  in  the  course  of  school  board  admini- 
stration ;  and  we  should  be  glad  to  see  security  taken 
.for  this  ixx,  any  Bill  dealing  with  the  whole  subiect. 


THE    EDUCATIONAL    OPPORTUNITY.       548 

of  them;  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  some  are  to  be 
found  on  the  ministerial  side  also.  But  we  believe  that^ 
even  on  this  question,  if  the  Government  were  to  take  a 
clear  and  bold  line,  and  to  propose  to  empower  a  new 
local  educational  authority  to  make  adequate  grants  from 
the  county  rates  to  voluntary  schools  on  receiving  satis- 
factory concessions  as  to  their  management)  they  would 
find  that  the  difficulties  of  the  situation  were  much  less 
serious  than  they  might  have  supposed. 

In  any  c€tse  we  are  convinced  that  in  this  instance  the 
clear  and  bold  line  is  the  line  at  once  of  prudence  and  of 
patriotism.  This  country  has  no  special  liking  for  Ministers 
who  are  never  prepared  to  risk  anything  in  the  way  of 
parliamentary  support  for  the  settlement  of  great  national 
questions.  It  has  come,  though  late,  to  care  about  edu- 
cation ;  and  ministers  will  best  consult  not  only  the 
interests  of  the  country  but  their  own  by  showing  that 
they  also  can  care  and  understand. 


2  o  2 


646    THE    SETTLEMENT    OF   SOUTH    AFRICA 

It  is  impossible  to  estimate  to-day  the  dimensions  which 
the  copper-mining  industry  of  South  Africa  is  destined  to 
attain,  the  value  of  the  product  being  subject  to  much 
fluctuation ;  but  taking  the  yield  per  ton  of  these  mines 
as  compared  with  those  that  are  being  worked  in  other 
parts  of  the  world,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
the  industry  is  a  growing  one. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  copper  industry  an  event  took 
place  which,  for  the  time,  entirely  absorbed  public  interest 
in  South  Africa,  viz.,  the  discovery  of  diamonds  under 
somewhat  romantic  conditions.  In  March  1867  Mr  John 
O'Reilly,  who  was  returning  from  a  hunting  trip  iii  the 
interior,  passed  the  night  at  a  farm  called  De  Kalk,  in 
the  Hopetown  district,  south  of  the  Orange  River.  In 
the  evening  he  was  looking  through  some  curious  river 
pebbles  which  the  family  had  collected,  amongst  which 
one  particularly  attracted  his  attention.  With  the  per- 
mission of  the  owner  he  submitted  it  to  Dr  Atherstone  of 
Orahamstown,  who  declared  it  to  be  a  veritable  diamcmd 
of  21^  carats,  worth  £500.  The  discovery  caused  great  ex- 
citement, and  resulted  in  an  active  search  being  made  for 
similar  stones ;  but  this  had  no  success  for  a  year  or  eighteen 
months.  In  March  1869,  however,  the  'Star  of  South 
Africa'  was  found.  It  was  '  obtained  from  a  native  witch- 
finder,  who  had  been  in  possession  of  it  for  a  long  time* 
without  the  least  idea  of  its  value  other  than  as  a  poiverful 
charm.'*  This  diamond,  after  being  cut  and  polished, 
was  finally  sold  for  25,0002.,  and  passed  into  the  possession 
of  the  Countess  of  Dudley. 

Early  in  1870  the  Yaal  River  gravel  at  Pniel,  close 
to  Slip  Drift,  and  near  to  the  subsequently  established 
town  of  Barkly  West,  was  attacked  in  earnest ;  and  new 
discoveries  followed  each  other  in  rapid  succession.  *  Thus 
far  only  the  alluvial  deposits,  which  produced  diamonds 
of  veiy  good  quality,  were  known.  The  mine  from  Trhich 
they  were  extracted  must  have  been  rich,  and  the  river  in 
flowing  over  it  carried  down  the  heavy  gravel  containing 
the  diamonds,  and  deposited  it  somewhat  capriciously 
along  its  banks.  The  muddy  waters  of  the  Vaal  may  stiU 
traverse  this  treasure-laden  crater,  or,  in  altering  their 
course,  may  at  some  time  in  the  past  have  left  it  exposed 

*  *  Diamonds  and  Gold  In  South  Africa '  (Beonert),  page  7« 


THE    SETTLEMENT   OF   SOUTH   AFRICA    555 

category  of  paying  mines.  So  great  is  the  capital  required 
for  the  development  and  equipment  of  these  mines,  and  so 
small  relatively  the  population,  that  only  the  best  have 
been  so  far  worked ;  but,  with  gradually  improving  methods 
of  extraction  and  probably  decreased  costs,  a  great  expan- 
sion of  the  industry  may  be  looked  for,  though  in  the 
somewhat  distant  future ;  and  it  may  be  predicted  with 
confidence  that  the  middle  of  the  century  will  not  see  the 
exhaustion  of  the  gold  in  this  region. 

The  gold-mining  industry  in  Rhodesia  has  been  subject 
to  many  vicissitudes,  owing  to  difficulties  of  communica- 
tion, the  Matabele  war  and  subsequent  rebellion,  and  the 
present  hostilities,  in  spite  of  which,  however,  that  country 
shows  signs  of  progress.  The  revenue  of  the  Mines 
Department  for  the  year  ending  March  31st,  1900,  was 
79,472Z.  148.  3c2.,  as  against  40304Z.  68.  5d.  for  the  previous 
year.  The  total  number  of  stamps  ei'ected  to  date  is  280, 
and  245  are  in  course  of  construction ;  eleven  mining  com- 
panies, with  an  issued  capital  of  1,859,0002.,  have  reached  the 
producing  stage;  and  between  September  1898,  when  crush- 
i^g  began,  and  December  1st,  1900,  261,787  tons  were 
crushed,  which  yielded  151,196  oz.  of  gold — an  average 
of  11  -  56  dwts.  per  ton,  excluding  tailings.  The  production 
of  the  Tati  Concessions  is  not  included  in  these  fig^ures. 

Expeditions  have  been  sent  to  the  north  of  the  Zam- 
besi Biver  under  the  auspices  of  the  Tanganyika  Con- 
cessions Company,  the  Northern  Copper  (B.S.A.)  Company, 
and  others;  as  a  result  of  which  it  is  claimed  that  both 
gold  and  copper,  in  quantities  that  are  believed  to  be  pro- 
fitable, have  been  discovered.  Too  little,  however,  has  as 
yet  been  done  in  the  locality  to  venture  a  prediction  to-day 
as  to  the  future  of  that  region. 

Nothing  more  than  a  sketch  of  the  situation  and  pro- 
duction of  the  gold  mines  is  possible  within  the  limits  of 
this  paper ;  but  sufficient  is  in  evidence  here  to  justify  the 
belief  that  South  Africa  will  be  the  greatest  gold  producer 
the  world  has  so  far  known.  Taking  the  best  section  of 
the  Rand,  about  eleven  and  a  half  miles  from  Langlaagte 
Block  B  to  the  Glencaim,  some  gentlemen  of  repute  in 
the  mining  world  have  made  various  computations  as  to 
the  output  of  gold  which  may  be  anticipated  from  this 
section.  In  1893  and  1895  the  late  Mr  Hamilton  Smith, 
assuming  that  a  vertical  depth  of  from  3000  to  3500  feet 


THE   SETTLEMENT    OF   SOUTH   AFRICA    576 

proof  is  found  in  the  well  organised  and  carefully  managed 
Compounds  at  Kimberley.  This  system  is  not  found  at 
Johannesburg,  for  gold*mining  does  not  require  the  segre- 
gation of  the  labourers^  gold  not  being  so  easily  stolen 
as  diamonds.  On  the  other  hand,  at  Johannesburg,  the 
demoralisation  of  native  labourers,  from  want  of  proper 
care,  from  treatment  often  very  harsh,  and  from  the  effects 
of  liquor  too  easily  got^  counteracts  all  the  benefits  which 
they  might  get  from  contact  with  civilisation.  Many 
natives  return  to  the  Kimberley  mines  again  and  again 
at  intervals  spread  over  years,  but  to  Johannesburg  many 
go  once  and  never  again. 

What  is  needed  is  not  repressive  and  compulsory 
measures,  but  more  organisation,  in  the  shape  of  a  Labour 
Department  or  Bureau,  and  efficient  Government  inspec- 
tion of  the  conditions  under  which  the  native  labourer 
lives  and  works«  It  may  be  said  that  it  is  not  the  duty  of 
an  administration  to  supply  labour.  That  is  true;  but 
the  welfare  and  protection  of  the  native,  and  the  pros- 
perity of  the  country  through  the  development  of  its 
resources,  surely  form  part  of  the  legitimate  duties  of 
all  administrationa        . 

Liquor. — On  some  questions  there  is  considerable 
diversity  of  opinion  among  correspondents  of  the  Native 
Baces  Committee;  but  on  one  point  there  is  absolute 
unanimityy  namely,  that  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquor  is 
morally  and  physically  destructive  to  the  natives,  and  that 
for  the  sake  of  their  welfare  its  sale  should  be  really  and 
not  only  nominally  prohibited.  To  this  opinion  there  is 
hardly  an  exception. 

As  to  prohibition,  the  matter  stands  thus.  In  the 
Transvaal  and  the  Cape  Colony,  except  in  some  locations 
in  the  latter,  the  supply  of  liquor,  whatever  be  the  law, 
is  simply  unlinuted,  or  Umited  only  by  the  contents  of  the 
native^s  purse.  Xt  is  in  these  two  territories  that  the 
drink  evil  is  at  its  worst.  Real  prohibition  exists  in  certain 
territories.  In  Natal,  the  sale  of  drink  to  natives  is  for- 
bidden in  locations  and  towns;  in  Basutoland  both  sale 
$uid  importation  are  prohibited;  in  the  Orange  River 
Colony,  the  prohibition  api>ears  to  be  thorough;  in  British 
Bechuanaland  there  is  prohibition  for  natives  only;  in 
Khama's  country  the  sale  is  prohibited  to  both  natives 
and  Europeans,  but  allowed  to  Europeans  at  one  ref resh- 

2q2 


MANDELL    CREIGHTON  598 

quently  wrote  a  (privately  printed)  memoir.  In  others, 
however,  of  the  Northumbrian  squires  he  inspired  some 
awe,  as  a  puzzlmg  kind  of  person,  who  said  and  did  enig- 
matic things.  'He  was  entirely  unworldly*  (writes  one 
of  his  Embleton  pupils).  *  I  never  knew  anyone  who  was 
less  a  respecter  of  persons,  or  who  laid  himself  out  so 
little  to  impress  those  who  might  be  useful.*  But  to  his 
parishioners,  of  all  classes,  he  accommodated  himself  with 
remarkable  versatility,  and  succeeded  in  winning  their 
confidence  to  an  unusual  degree,  '  I  think '  (says  a  friend 
and  neighbour  of  his)  '  he  made  it  his  chief  aim  to  know 
all  his  parishioners  and  to  be  known  of  them.'  They  con- 
sulted him  in  their  difficulties,  and  welcomed  his  advice, 
because  *  he  never  gushed  or  said  soft  things,*  but  spoke 
to  them  *  not  only  as  a  clergyman  but  as  a  man  of  affairs.' 
'  I  remember  *  (says  a  pupil)  '  one  virago  in  the  parish  who 
used  to  have  delirium  tremens.  When  she  had  a  fit  the 
vicar  was  the  only  man  who  could  control  her,  and  he 
was  accordingly  always  called  in«'  '  He  never  spared  him- 
self to  do  his  people  a  good  turn ;  and  once,  at  consider- 
able inconvenience,  took  a  consumptive  fisher-girl  all  the 
way  to  Falmouth,  to  place  her  in  a  hospital  there.  Others 
among  his  i>arishioners  '  he  started  in  life  and  helped  in 
substantial  ways.'  '  Even  at  this  distance  of  time '  (says 
one  who  work^  with  hhn  thei«)  Mt  is  wonderful  how 
those  who  really  knew  him  in  his  old  parish  and  the 
diocese  at  large  speak  and  think  of  him.' 

But  his  energies  were  by  no  means  confined  to  his 
imrish.  He  became  a  guardian  of  the  poor  soon  after  his 
arrival  in  Embleton,  and  was  sujbsequently  elected  chair- 
man of  the  Board — an  office  which  carried  with  it  the 
chairmanship  of  the  rural  sanitary  authority.  From  1877 
onwards  he  was  chairman  of  the  School  Attendance 
Committee,  which  had  just  come  into  existence  under  the 
Education  Act  of  1876.  In  1870  Bishop  Lightfoot  made 
him  Rural  Dean  of  Alnwick.  Together  with  Canon  Trotter, 
then  vicar  of  Alnwick,  he  took  a  leading  x>art  in  founding 
a  provident  dispensary  for  that  town  and  the  surrounding 
district.  At  Alnwick,  too,  he  gave  frequent  lectures  for 
the  Mechanics'  Institute,  mostly  on  historical  subjects; 
for  he  was  always  anxious  to  seize  opi>ortunities  for 
coming  in  contact  with  the  working  classes,  and  ready  to 
show  them  the  interest  which  could  be  derived  from  the 


MANDELL   CREIGltTON  (W5 

M  dedlted.  He  followed  this  up  by  declining  an  intitation 
to  the  great  house,  and  by  staying  at  the  Ticarage  instead ; 
and  the  stubborn  parson  soon  afterwards  received  an  iuTitation 
to  stay  at  the  Palace.' 

Comparatively  ignorant  as  he  was  of  the  Midlands 
before  he  came  to  Peterborough,  Dr  Creighton  soon  knew 
all  abont  the  district,  and  had  visited  every  place  of 
interest.  A  Leicestershire  friend  tells  a  story  illustrative 
of  the  bishop's  anxiety  to  know  every  parish  in  his  diocese. 
He  had  expressed  a  desire  to  inspect  Newtown  Unford 
church — ^until  lately  a  donative  under  the  Earls  of  Stam- 
ford, and  therefore  a  sealed  book  to  a  bishop.  The  fact 
that  no  bishop  had  ever  been  known  to  visit  the  place 
stimulated  his  curiosity.  His  guide  took  him  a  scrambling 
walk,  over  rocks  and  ferns,  through  Bradgate  Park,  past 
the  ruined  house  in  which  Lady  Jane  Grey  pursued  her 
studies  under  Roger  Ascham.  The  bishop,  though  he  had 
never  been  there  before,  knew  the  whole  history  of  the 
place.  Arrived  at  the  gate  by  which  they  hoped  to  make 
their  exit  from  the  park,  it  was  found  to  be  locked  and 
insurmountable,  while  a  ten-foot  wall  forbade  further 
progress.  *  I  could  not  see '  (says  the  narrator)  *  how  the 
episcopal  tights  and  orthodox  gaiters  could  overcome  the 
obstacle.  The  bishop,  however,  declared  he  could  get 
over  the  wall  if  I  would  give  hun  a  lift  up  and  let  him 
go  first ;  and  so  we  managed  it.  It  was  a  scene  I  shall 
never  forget.'  The  expedition  concluded  with  the  in- 
spection of  the  church,  to  the  delight  of  the  village,  which 
had  never  beheld  a  bishop  before ;  and  a  church  extension 
and  restoration  scheme  was  the  result. 

In  the  towns  of  Leicester  and  Northampton,  where, 
as  is  well  known,  popular  feeling  is  largely  opposed  to, 
or  at  least  divergent  from,  the  Church,  Dr  Creighton 
enjoyed  a  great  and  growing  popularity,  chiefly  attri- 
butable to  his  capacity  for  looking  at  things  from  other 
people's  points  of  view.  He  enjoyed  his  visits  to  these 
towns  because  *it  was  a  pleasure  to  him  to  come  into 
contact  with  the  hard-headed  business  qualities  of  a  com- 
mercial and  industrial  society.'  He  frequently  lectured  to 
audiences  largely  composed  of  artisans  ;  and  the  wide  and 
just  comprehensiveness  of  his  ideas,  his  sincere  affection 
for  Hhe  people'  in  the  largest  sense,  and  the  generous 
hoi)es  he  indulged  for  them,  were  warmly  appreciated  by 
Vol,  198,— iVb.  386.  2  s 


622  MANDELL    CREIGHTON 

await,  with  keen  interest,  the  ^Life,'  which  it  is  under- 
stood will  be  given  to  the  world  by  the  accomplished  pen 
of  one  who  was  linked  to  him  by  the  closest  of  human 
ties.  Faults  there  were,  no  doubt,  as  in  every  character ; 
but  where  the  good  predominates  so  largely  it  is  needles8 
to  dweU  on  these.  It  is  certainly  rare  to  find  so  much 
intellectual  force  and  so  high  a  standard  of  conduct  com- 
bined in  one  man;  but  in  estimating  their  comparative 
value  it  may  be  well  to  remember  what  he  said  himself 
in  his  preface  to  the  *  Life  of  Lord  Lilf ord ' — almost  the 
last  thing  he  wrote : 

'  The  impression  produced  by  character  is,  after  all,  more 
permanent  than  that  produced  by  capacity.  It  passes  into 
other  lives,  and  is  fruitful,  as  an  influence,  long  after  the 
results  of  capacity  have  perished  in  the  using.' 


..  L  ^ 


INDEX  TO  VOL.   108 


«20 


R. 


Ramaeyer,  F.,  'Joun  d'angoisse  4 
Coumaasie,'  600  et  aeqq. 

Beoolln,  C,  'L*Axiarohie  Litt^raire,' 
360. 

Bedi,  Francesco,  his  experiments  on 
spontaneoos  generation,  802. 

Boberts,  John,  his  aptitude  for  playing 
billiards,  48&— style  of  his  son's 
playing,  487. 

Boberts,  P.  R,  his  introduction  to 
the  work  of  Sir  W.  Hunter,  46. 

Boberts,  W.  Rhys,  'Dionysius  of 
Halicamassus :  The  Three  Literary 
Letters,'  379. 

Robertson,  Mr,  his  plays,  84. 

Bobertaon,  L.  G.,  'Marine  Boilers,' 
407. 

Bobinson,  J.  P.,  on  the  liquor  trade 
of  South  Africa,  577. 

Boe,  Sir  Thomas,  his  services  in  the 
East  India  Company,  64. 

Bolleston,  Professor,  'Forms  of 
Animal  Life,'  867,  274. 

Rosebery,  Lord,  his  monograph  on 
Napoleon,  205--on  his  treatment  at 
St  Helena,  210. 

Royal  Agricultural  Society  of  Eng- 
land, first  itwTifntl  show,  16. 

Bussia,  policy  towards  the  Amir  of 
Ale^bianistan,  166-^attack  on  Paid' 
deh,  161. 


S. 


Sadler,  M.  E.,  *  Lectures  on  Educa- 
tion in  the  Nineteenth  Century,' 
542. 

Saintsbury,  Greorge,  'A  History  of 
Criticism  and  Literary  Taste  in 
Europe,'  361.    See  Criticism. 

Sohreiner,  Olive,  her  address  to  the 
women  of  South  Africa,  241. 

Scotland,  condition  of  agriculture,  7. 

Scott,  Clement,  'The  Drama  of 
Yesterday  and  To-day,'  70. 

Shepherd,  Sir  S.,  on  the  liquor  traffic 
in  South  Africa,  676. 

Sloane,  Prof.,  his  *  Life  of  Napoleon 
Buonaparte,'  205. 

Spalding,  Henry,  on  preoautions 
against  bad  tenants,  440. 


Spencer,  Herbert,  his  term  *  survival 
of  the  fittest,'  272. 

Stevenson,  H.  W.,  his  style  of  playing 
biUiards,  494. 

Switserland,  its  military  system,  197. 

Symonds,  J.  A.,  hb  f^ing  for  re- 
ligion, 467. 

T. 

TennyBon  and  Virgil :  a  Idterary 
Parallel,  99— birth  of  Tennyson, 
103— loyalty,  104— parents,  105— 
education,  ib, — friends,  lOO—on  the 
character  of  Cambridge  studies, 
109 — early  poems,  111 — studies,  112 
— appearance,  114— charge  of  pla- 
giarism, 118— other  charges,  119 — 
qualities,  121 — ^passion  for  natural 
science,  123  —  patriotism,  t6.  — 
method  of  composing,  125 — ^restora- 
tion of  old  English  words  and 
forms,  126—manner  of  reading 
aloud,  127.  See  '  Virgil  and  Tenny- 
son.' 

Thidbault,  his  volumes  on  Napoleon, 
204— on  his  appearance,  215— 'his 
return  from.  Waterloo,  218. 


U. 


United  States,  treatment  of  the  Hay- 
Pauncefote  Treaty,  279.  See  Nica- 
raguan  CanaL 

V. 

Vallery-Badot,  R,  '  La  Vie  de  Pas- 
teur,' 385,  404. 

Varius,  his  Life  of  Virgil,  101. 

Vietoria,  Queen,  The  Character 
of,  301— composite,  303— discrimi- 
nation, 304 — inherent  obstinacy, 
ib. — ^habitof  suspending  Judgment, 
306— simplicity  and  kindliness,  307 
— love  of  power,  308 — ^punctuality, 
ib.  —  sympathy,  309  —  scheme  of 
manner,  310— dramatic  instinct,  311 
— ^gfenius  for  movement,  312-315^ 
conquest  of  the  French,  313— rela- 
tions with  the  Empress  Eugenie, 
314  —  her  smile,  815  —  sense  of 
humour,  318 — wit,  317 — courage 
318 — ^political  relation  to  religion, 
319— personal,  319-322— interest  in 
literature,  322 — art,  323— music, 
824— drama,  i&.— the  court,  325— 
instinct  for  good  breeding,  327— 
ladies-in-waiting,    828 — maids    of